Another solid story in this YA mystery series. The adorably psychopathic little chemist is again at the center of a series of attacks and deaths, riding all over the countryside on her anthropomorphized bicycle Gladyce, and driving the local law enforcement to distraction with her meddling and exasperatingly smug genius.

Audiobook, purchased via Audible. Jayne Entwistle again brings Flavia’s outsized personality to life.
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Another enjoyable Flavia de Luce novel with the feisty and resourceful eleven year old girl who loves investigating murders and is very intrepid in the sort of things she gets up to in pursuit of the truth. Yet she remains believable in the touching vulnerability over the loss of her mother, and the bullying she is subjected to by her older sisters. There are also some good and memorable minor characters including Miss Mountjoy whose house reeks of cod liver oil and the mercurial Porcelain who tries to kill Flavia more than once. Meanwhile, Flavia's home is falling into dilapidation as her father struggles to keep them solvent, her mother Harriet having owned the house and then been lost in the Himalayas, presumed dead. I get the feeling that this subplot will become increasingly important in future books, and may severely cramp Flavia's current lifestyle of freeroaming criminalist, and chemist in her uncle's old lab, as the grand old house must surely be given up soon through lack of money. ( )

Ah, character development. How I love it! In this, the third of the series, we get a glimpse into what makes Flavia Flavia, and a bit more about her absent mother. I do still find her a bit too precious, but in this book we see more of her doubts and sensitive side, her desire for love and affection - things one would expect even from the pluckiest heroine.
I grew up in a family of four, so I know about sibling tormenting, but these sisters go above the grade. It reminds one rather of the Cinderella story, with the two ugly stepsisters conspiring endlessly against poor Cinders.
The story is as usual, fun, not too scary, with amusing commentary on the various villagers and lots of furious bicycling on Gladys. Flavia must be a very fit young lass.
Perfectly inspirational for your own young lass. ( )

I was given a review copy of the second book in this series, The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag, and absolutely loved Flavia and the whole Canadian take on postwar Little Britain, so me being me, I reserved the next four books from the library!

I'm not sure if Second Book Syndrome - or Third, in this case - has set in, though, but I struggled to engage with both the characters and the mystery. Flavia is less wunderkind than spoiled, lonely brat - like a pre-adolescent Emma Woodhouse - and she actively interferes with two crime scenes. Yes, she's an eleven year old girl, but she knows better! As Inspector Hewitt summarises, 'It is regrettable that out investigation has been so badly compromised. Crime scenes disturbed ... evidence tampered with ... crucial information withheld ...' And one of the deaths was almost exactly like the 'cold case' in the last book.

Also, I'm amused that other reviewers are so offended by the infighting between Flavia and her sisters - yes, they're mean to her, scaring her and telling her that nobody loves her, but that's their job! Get a grip, people. Also, how wonderfully gothic is Flavia's take on her family:

'I had already learned that sisterhood, like Loch Ness, has things that lurk unseen beneath the surface, but I think it was only now that I realised that of all the invisible strings that tied the three of us together, the dark ones were the strongest.'

I do still like Flavia, and will dutifully plough through the rest of the library books, but I'm a bit worried that the shine is rubbing off already - and I keep picking out (North) Americanisms, which I couldn't spot/was blind to in the first book! ( )

Dear Flavia De Luce,
It's not you, it's me. I was charmed at first by your precocious but naive approach to crime-solving, not to mention your chemical knowledge and derring-do. But I'm not good at series and so, even having spaced reading the three books apart by nearly a decade, the things that I once found charming now strike me as twee and a little redundant. Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled that trimethylaminuria was the final clue to solve a murder and I'm in to Christian separatist sects but the story overall failed to catch my interest. OK, I lied, it's not entirely me: I thought that the story dragged and some clues were a little to on the noise (like the omnipresent fishy odor). But overall, I'm just not built for series that are all a little same-y. So Flavia, I still really adore your pluck and scientific detective work, but I'm not going forward with the series.

Love,
Me. ( )