“Unless some sweetness at the bottom lie,
Who cares for all the crinkling of the pie.”
Flavia de Luce, almost eleven, a chemistry genius, and the best darn British sleuth since Sherlock Holmes. This adventure mystery, one of many, begins with the appearance of a dead bird on the doorstep of the de Luce country estate home. The bird has a postage stamp impaled on its beak. Flavia accidentally listens in on an argument between her father and a stranger then discovers the strange man lying in the garden. His last word before he dies is “Vale” – Latin for farewell. When Flavia’s father is hauled away by the local police charged with murder she is pulled into solving the mystery in order to clear her father.
Her search for clues takes her to the boy’s school where her father was involved in a tragic theft of a very rare and valuable postage stamp. The theft resulted in the apparent suicide of one of the professors. It turns out later that the old guy was really murdered. The stamp turned up in the stranger’s room hidden behind one of the travel stickers on his trunk. Of course it is Flavia who discovered the stamp and tracked down the man who killed the professor.
This young detective manages to stay one or two steps ahead of the police and step by step works out in her brilliant mind what happened. The problem is that Flavia ends up being captured by the killer and held captive. Fortunately the family retainer witnesses this suspicious guy trying to search the estate for the stamp he thinks Flavia has hidden behind the pendulum of a clock in her father’s study. He follows and breaks in saving Flavia at the last minute before she can be dispatched.
Flavia de Luce is the most charming and brilliant young detective to come along in ages. This one gets an 8 of 10 on the Weaver meter and I hope to see many more in the series.
