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Author: Alan Bradley
Series: Flavia De Luce, book 3
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2011
Recommendation: Enjoyable continuation to the mystery series.
Rating: 7.5/10
Summary: Flavia sets a gypsy's tent on fire and ends up offering the gypsy to stay at Buckshaw's grounds. The gypsy gets attacked during the night and of course Flavia is in the midst of the investigation.
Reactions: This installment in Flavia's story went by pretty quickly for me. It was fun and I enjoyed following Flavia's adventures, her relationship with her family, and her deductions. I didn't necessarily feel that the overarching series story line progressed too much in this book, but we did get a few interesting tidbits about Flavia's mother.
In terms of the mystery plot, I thought it was well done, though some things became apparent towards the end of the book even before they were really revealed. The book timeline strains credulity a bit by placing Flavia in the way of so many murders in the span of some months, but I guess the author really doesn't want Flavia to get past the magical 11th year of her life.
All-in-all, it was a fun quick airplane read that drew me further into the story and made me want to pick up the next book in the series. I am definitely hooked.
This has been my favorite of the series thus far, I think in large part because I enjoyed all the mentions of her bicycle, Gladys, and the relationship she has with her. Also I thought this one did a nice job of actually furthering the overarching story in that we saw even more how painful the mystery of the mother's death is to the whole family. I felt like the weight of this weighed more heavily on the events in this book. Still, it is a subtle and slowly developing story being told.
ReplyDeleteIt is such a fun series, isn't it? I wish I had read the latest when it first came out as it would have been more seasonably appropriate, but I just didn't get around to it. Still, it is waiting on my shelf for whenever the urge to spend more time with Flavia leads me to it.
I haven't picked up the latest book yet either. Saving it for the right time to read it. I am looking forward to it though.
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