The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Novel

Sherlock Holmes, prepare to meet your future match. She's a precocious 11-year-old named Flavia de Luce. She never meant to be a detective. She’s an aspiring chemist with a keen interest in poison, mainly to lace her older sister Orphella’s lipstick. She is a fierce, loyal, and loving daughter, who will go out of her way to help her father. Now you can't say the same about her affection towards her two sisters. They're a more complex and adversary type relationship. She's nothing like them and so goes the “incidents” with the lipstick and the chemistry that swells Orphelia’s lips up. No worries, Flava gets a taste of her own medicine later in the novel.

This cozy mystery revolves around a dead bird sound at their manor with a stamp on its break. Later, a man is found roaming on her property in Bucksaw. He gets in through stealthy means and threatens Flava’s father as we hear shouting. Later, the mysterious man was found dead by none other than Flava, herself. She doesn’t scream or get traumatized. Instead, she finds it fascinating and exhilarating. Soon enough, the police are on the case. They take everything in as they try to solve the case. They ask: What was he doing there? Who was he? What did he have to do with Flava’s father? Why was her father so afraid? Why did the man act so menacing towards the father? Why was there only one slice of pie missing as it was cooling by the window sill? Who took that single slice from the pie and what does that have to do with anything? Taking everything in, the police declare they've caught the murderer: It's Flava's father!! He's closest by proximity to the murdered victim. Case solved! Or is it? So many questions and clues and yet the police see nothing with their eyes. Flavia de Luce races against time to prove her father's innocence and finds the identity of the man and who he is to her father. The game is afoot. Although she may not like the answers.

Flava’s personality is both childlike innocence and of a brilliant mind where you often forget she is only 11 years old. This book is set in the 1950s and in a small village where you think when you park your bicycle outside the police station, it would be safe. (That is a hint, by the way to the solving of the mystery.) I think that's why I was not in love with the book. Flava's mind and character are childlike and yet smarter than an adult with an overly perceptive, astute mind.