2011 historical mystery; third in Bradley's series about Flavia de
Luce, young amateur sleuth in 1950s Britain. A missing baby, an
assault on a Gypsy (sic) fortune-teller, and a murder in Flavia's own
home will all turn out to be connected.
Not for a while, though. And there's the local weird sect that's
perhaps not as extinct as everyone thinks, and a long stumble through
the abandoned water-tunnels under the gardens of Buckshaw. Once more
the roots of the mystery are sunk deep in the past (well, Flavia is
still eleven, so many things are for her).
Things feel rather unfocused at times, but the mystery holds it all
together – just about. Flavia by now ought to know better than to
interfere with crime scenes, but she still does it. Her sisters are
still horrible, but here it feels actively abusive rather than the
usual give-and-take of a relationship.
I can see that Bradley wants to keep Flavia eleven years old, but
three murders over one long summer starts to seem like rather a lot
for a little village in the country; that nobody remarks on this is a
bit of a break in the emotional verisimilitude. (I can accept an
eleven-year-old chemical genius with her own private, if antiquated,
laboratory, but failing to comment on all these murders makes the
people not work.)
It's definitely worth reading these books in order if you're going to
read them at all. This one changes direction a bit, leaning more on
the meat of the mystery and less on the distractions of family and
village life; it's weaker thereby, but often more interesting.
Followed by I Am Half-Sick of Shadows.
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