Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Let me get right to the point: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a 2009 mystery by Alan Bradley, is pretty darn charming. And really, what else could it be, when you have obsessive stamp collectors, a 30-year-old mysterious death, a tiny English hamlet, and a narrator who is an 11-year-old chemistry genius?

Flavia de Luce (I forgot to mention that all the names are amazing), narrates the story from Bishop's Lacey, a small town in England. She lives in Buckshaw, a rambling old mansion complete with man-made lake and island. Precocious and witty, Flavia lives with her older sisters, vain Ophelia and bookish Daphne, and their father, Col. de Luce, who is retired and collects stamps. Rounding out the household are Dogger, a jack-of-all-trades who suffers from PTSD, and Mrs. Mullet, who comes each day to make the family some truly hideous pies.

Notably absent is Harriet de Luce, Flavia's mother. She died in a mountaineering accident when Flavia was three, and she continues to haunt every character in the novel. It isn't a literal haunting, but her presence is everywhere, from her old car that Flavia and the Colonel sit in when they need to think to her untouched sitting room, which serves as a sort-of shrine. But more on her later.

Flavia's life takes an exciting turn the day she finds a dead bird with a stamp impaled on its beak on her doorstep, and she witnesses her father arguing with a strange man. Later that night she hears the strange man's last words as he dies in the family's cucumber patch. Flavia decides to investigate the mystery herself, and she rides her bike all over Bishop's Lacey, making several visits to the archives of the library and interviewing townspeople who met the dead stranger.

As Flavia pieces together her investigation, she learns that her father went to school with the dead man, and that the two were involved in some very shady dealings relating to a missing stamp. This connection leads to her father's arrest, and Flavia goes right to the police station and hears his side of the story. Learning of his innocence fuels her desire to complete the investigation and clear his name. She's one step ahead of the detectives on the case at all times, and while I stayed ahead of Flavia on a few points, the solution was satisfying.

There are flaws here, to be certain, including the writing. I have never seen such an incredible use of similes in my entire life, and some are laughably bad. Some examples:

"Taking care not to jiggle the curtains, I peeked out into the kitchen garden just as the moon obligingly came out from behind a cloud to illuminate the scene, much as it would in a first-rate production of A Midsummer Night's Dream."

"Feely and Daffy were sitting on a flowered divan in the drawing room, wrapped in one another's arms and wailing like air-raid sirens."

"At first Father's unaccustomed words came slowly and hesitantly — jerking into reluctant motion like rusty freight cars on the railway.'

Besides the distracting nature of the constant barrage of comparisons, Bradley needs to do more with Harriet. She is a thoroughly compelling character, in part because her death seems mysterious — she was climbing mountains in Tibet with no one else from her family. As more Flavia de Luce mysteries are on their way, I forsee Bradley delving into her life and influence on her husband and daughters.

Despite its flaws, The Sweetness of the Bottom of the Pie is fun. Read with tea and don't put it down until you finish it.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I was late to the game reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson's suspenseful and intricately plotted novel, since I just picked it up last week while searching for a vacation "beach book." I tore through it in a couple days, so it fit the bill, but it's also a multi-layered and intelligent read.

Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist just sentenced to prison for libel against a Swedish mogul when he's contacted by Henrik Vanger, who wants Blomkvist to solve the decades-old disappearance of his niece, Harriet. Lisbeth Salander is a twenty-something "punk prodigy" and private investigator who's hired by Vanger's lawyer to look into Blomkvist's background. Together (though they don't meet for hundreds of pages) they try to deduce what happened to Harriet — under the pretense of writing Vanger's autobiography — while also unraveling another family mystery that emerges and clearing Blomkvist's name in the libel case.

There's a lot going on, but Larsson has deftly interwoven the various threads of the plot while introducing two compelling characters. Blomkvist is at once serious about his work as a financial journalist — "he comes off a little like Practical Pig in the Three Little Pigs" — as he reveals corruption in the corporate world. But he's also a "big hit" with women and maintains a two-decade long relationship with his married editor, whose husband is fine with the arrangement. Blomkvist is a dashing hero, yet one who is cunning and vengeful at the same time.

His foil, Salander — she of the dragon tattoo — is even more compelling, yet more difficult to grasp. Larsson devotes pages over the course of the novel to physical descriptions of her ("a pale, anorexic young woman, who had hair as short as a fuse and a pierced nose and eyebrows… she was a natural red head, but she dyed her hair raven black. She looked as thought she had just emerged from a week long orgy with a gang of hard rockers.") and gives us back story, but she remains elusive.

The plot and the characters are in capable hands. Larsson's Sweden is a dark place, but one he elevates beyond the setting of a standard thriller. Blomkvist and Salander's working — and romantic — relationship is surprising, but it's an epic pairing. It's unfortunate that we can only see them in action a little bit more — Larsson, who died in 2004, left behind three manuscripts. His second, The Girl Who Played with Fire, was published in translation earlier this year (yesterday I was #75 on the waiting list at the library), and the third is forthcoming.