The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (2009)

I was actually intrigued by the cover and description of the latest Flavia DeLuce mysteries, but it looked like I needed to start from the beginning, so I listened to this book. I actually didn't like 11 year-old Flavia that much in the beginning, but she grew on me. I just read an interview with the 70 year old first book author about why he choose to have the book narrated by a girl in England in the 50's. He remembers his own passionate interests at that time, and Flavia is an avid chemist with a special interest in poisons. As a young girl, she is not taken seriously and has access to people in a way that they don't realize she might actually do something with the information they give her. England, because his mother was from England, and he felt he grew up in an English household. And the 1950's, because he wants to look at some aspects of British life that has vanished. In this book it is about postage stamps.

Flavia finds a dying man in their garden, a man her father had an argument with just earlier that night. Flavia takes it upon herself to solve they mystery of who he is and who killed him, especially when her father gets arrested for the crime. She lives in a large house with her father, two older sisters with whom she does not get along, a cook, and Dogger, the handyman, who is the only one with whom she really has a solid relationship. Flavia ends up researching her father's past in boarding school and the plot centers around two stamps that were printed in an orange color protesting Queen Victoria, if I am not mistaken. One was recently stolen from the King and the other from a school's headmaster years ago.

I just had to get used to Flavia spouting off chemical facts, though I did like her working in her own private lab. One of the first things we see her do is poison her sister's lipstick with poison ivy extract. I also loved that she used the library - looking things up in old newspapers. Another fun thing was that she traipsed all over the countryside either on foot or on bike. I still did some of that when I was growing up, but don't think my son has done that very much. I can't say that I am totally enamored by this book, but will probably pick up the others in due time.