Flavia de Luce and her bicycle “Gladys”–oh boy. I am hooked on this English countryside mystery book series. Taking place in a small village during the early 1950’s, it’s a look into the daily life of a 12 year old girl living in a run down shambles of an estate manor. What once was a grand place full of life and beautiful gardens, Buckshaw manor is now full of peeling wallpaper and faded tiredness. Don’t be fooled this is not a kids series but a peak into the mind of a genius scientist in the making.
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A girl, a bike, and a chemistry lab
Flavia and her two older sisters are left to their own devices since the death of their mother when Flavia was a baby. Her mother had died in a mounteneering accident leaving her husband bereft and shut in his study most of the time collecting stamps. The three sisters are full of their own interests and are not closely bound in friendship but rather fighting and devising pranks on each other.
While one sister has her nose stuck in a book all day, the other is preening in the mirror and playing beautiful piano pieces. Flavia on the other hand is planning her next chemistry experiment in the abandoned wing of the manor. Choosing the unheated and falling down wing of the house in order to be left alone to do her experiments in her lab.
Along with the help of their all-around-estate-man Dodger, Flavia finds herself independently investigating local neighborhood crimes (usually murders) to the irritation and exasperated admiration of the local police. She is spunky, fearless, and adventurous often to the point of putting herself in deadly scenerios. With genius level chemistry knowledge, Flavia comes to the logical conclusions of cases and we learn science tidbits as we go.
While mixed with adventure and humor, this series gives a poignant look at the after-effects of World War 2 on the mind of so many returning soldiers. Dodger, a man of many hats, does any job he is able to do at Buckshaw while dealing with terrible mental flashbacks. Flavia’s father is a returning officer who was imprisoned by the Japanese with Dodger during the war.
They have a shared history of the war prison and torture that is never spoken of but effects them daily and is the bond of their loyalty of friendship to each other. We also catch a glimpse of the local German war prisoner serving on a local farm who elected to stay on in England after the war ended.
There are also scenerios giving us a glimpse of the attitudes of the day pertaining to the local village, traditions, and of those visitors passing through during this era. We see the local parrish life with the vicar and his wife, the shops, the local wood carver, a traveling puppet show passing through, the local candy shop and library, boarding school life, and much grumbling about the dreaded estate death duty taxes.
Sometimes tearful and sad and sometimes humorous and nostalgic, I highly recommend this series for the British cozy mystery fan. Alan Bradley does an excellent job developing characters that bring you right into the home of the De Luce family with a colorful mental picture. Don’t forget to check out the first in the series The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.
