The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley

In searching about for a birthday gift for steakums, I turned to NPR for book recommendations. They were reading the second in this series, The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, and said it was good, but nto as good as the first one. It seemed like a light summer read with a strong female protagonist, so that sounded right up her alley.

steakums had started with the other book I had gotten her (The Help), so I decided to check on how good my purchase was.

It’s a quick read, and not without interest, but the style of writing was a little too precocious; the author just seemed to be trying too hard to be clever. The mystery was a bit too contrived and unbelievable.
Who would hide a dead bird in a pie in order to smuggle it out of Norway to leave as a vague, nonsensical warning on someone’s doorstep? It was just… dumb.
The book is okay, but with all those thousands of other excellent options out there, why waste your time?