Years ago, when I was going through a reading drought because life was getting in the way, I desperately needed an escape and Alan Bradley’s first Flavia de Luce mystery nudged a little bit of lightness back into my life (I even wrote a review, which is quite out of character for me). Our recent CBR chat about mysteries reminded me how much I enjoyed sinking into Flavia’s wanderings about Bishop’s Lacey, the rural English town she lives in, so I decided it was time to give the second book in the series a go.
The series centers around precocious Flavia, 11 going on 12, who lives in a manor with her widowed father, two older sisters who she says hates her — either tormenting her by playing pranks or giving her the silent treatment — and their handyman Dogger, a veteran who suffers from PTSD. The period is the 1950s, and Flavia is basically allowed to go wherever she pleases by bicycle (which she names Gladys). She’s also a chemistry fanatic, and in their home Buckshaw Manor, she has a lab set up (inherited from her Uncle Tar) where she does experiments.
The second book, The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag, introduces two new arrivals to Bishop’s Lacey, a puppeteer named Rupert and his assistant Nialla, who find themselves stuck in the rural town because their van had broken down. They don’t have enough money to get their van repaired, so the town’s vicar suggest they put a couple shows on for the town as payment — Rupert is apparently a bigshot puppeteer who’s on the BBC — and tasks Flavia, because she happens to just be there, with showing them about town and helping the pair out.
And then, of course, murder happens. Rupert turns up dead during his show, which had earlier gone off without a hitch at the matinee screening. And his death is somehow connected to a years-old death of Robin, a five-year-old boy, who had hung himself, leaving his bereft mother going slightly mad in the years since.
But luckily Flavia can basically flounce around town, ask probing questions, and conduct her own investigation without anyone stopping her because… well 11-year-olds are invisible. She also does chemistry experiments that bring the truth closer to light — though as readers, we can see that as smart as she may be at deductive reasoning and investigating, she’s still so naive at understanding people and human relationships.
Like at one point, she didn’t quite understand what “an affair” entailed and asked Dogger about it. His response — it meant “they became the greatest of friends” — was a totally acceptable answer for her. She also couldn’t understand why Nialla would stay with Rupert, when he beats her and is so clearly such an asshole. Yet she marvels at his talents on stage, how he’s able to arrest attention with just a few puppets and stagecraft wizardry.
Another thing I felt this time — that I didn’t quite catch in the first book — was that despite being a fluffy mystery, there’s a thread of sadness throughout that threatens to be pulled and tugging at it could unfurl an ocean of sadness. Flavia’s mother Harriet is called “Harriet” in her narration — not Mom or mother. Her dad never talks about Harriet, and is generally seen as a rather aloof presence. She feels like her sisters hate her, and sometimes, based on how she describes their fights, I don’t blame her.
No one is the slightest bit interested in what you do. You’re like an unwanted dog.”
“I’m not unwanted,” I said.
“Name one person in this household who wants you and I’ll give you a guinea. Go ahead — name one.”
“Harriet!” I said. “Harriet wanted me, or she wouldn’t have had me.”
Girlhood, as we say. We always know quite how to hurt the ones we love the most.
Another character we are introduced to — which is unrelated to all the dead people popping up around Bishop’s Lacey — is Aunt Felicity, who comes for a visit. Flavia and her sisters derides her, calling her batty, but she ends up giving Flavia the information she so desperately craves — what her mother was like.
Good heavens, child! If you want to see your mother, you have no more than to look in the glass. If you want to know her character, look inside yourself. You’re so much like her it gives me the willies.”
Well then.
Aunt Felicity is also the only one who appears to really see Flavia, exhorting her:
If you remember nothing else, remember this: inspiration from outside one’s self is like the heat in an oven. It makes passable Bath buns. But inspiration from within is like a volcano: it changes the face of the world.”
I wanted to throw my arms around this dotty old bat in her George Bernard Shaw costume and hug her until the juices ran out. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I felt like there were more emo musings in this book than what I remembered in the first (truth be told, I don’t remember the plot from the first — like I said, it was a mad work period that hasn’t really slowed in the years since) and I wonder if this was a conscious decision by Bradley to feature how Flavia could change in the future books. As a pre-teen, Flavia is still young and self-confident enough to go about the world without questioning her place in it, but she’s about to enter the dreaded phase of teenage angst. I enjoy how very much herself she is, and I look forward to reading more of her growth in later books.