The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Alan Bradley Begins New Series Featuring 11-year-old Sleuth
Jun 2, 2009
In the England of 1950, two events occur that distract pigtailed 11-year old Flavia de Luce from her plans to seek revenge on her older sisters for having locked her in a closet. First, Flavia discovers the body of a dead bird that clasps a rare Black Penny stamp in its beak. Next, she finds a second body – a human one this time – when she stumbles upon a red-haired man who lies dying in a cucumber patch at her family’s dilapidated country estate, Buckshaw.
With this intriguing premise, Canadian author Alan Bradley begins The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, his first mystery novel and the first title in his new series,The Buckshaw Chronicles, which features the further exploits of the irrepressible Flavia.
Summary of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
When her father becomes a suspect in the murder of Horace Bonepenny, the man whose body Flavia discovered in the cucumber patch, Flavia sets out to find the real murderer. She has one clue. When Bonepenny argued with her father shortly before he died, he mentioned the death 30 years earlier of a man named Twining.
Flavia hops on her bicycle – which she has named Gladys – and goes to the village library to investigate. There she finds a newspaper story from 1920 detailing the suspected suicide of Grenville Twining, her father’s housemaster at Greyminster School, who fell to his death from the school’s clock tower. Later, Flavia and Gladys travel to Greyminster School, where Flavia discovers new evidence in an old crime.
Evaluation of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Most detective novels focus on a crime, but The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie focuses on a character – its narrator, Flavia Sabrina de Luce. The novel's appeal is directly attributable to Bradley's characterization of the precocious Flavia, who combines childlike enthusiasm with adult intelligence.
The primary target of Flavia's intelligence is chemistry, but, as Flavia claims, “My particular passion was poison.” She pursues her research in the nineteenth century laboratory her ancestor, Tarquin de Luce, established at Buckshaw. But Flavia the child is not above using her adult skills to seek revenge on her older sister, Ophelia. She coats Ophelia’s lipstick with a poison similar to that in poison ivy and waits gleefully to see Ophelia’s symptoms develop.
Even though Bradley uses Flavia as his novel's primary narrator, he allows Colonel de Luce to assume that role for three chapters in which the Colonel tells Flavia about the events leading up to the death of Twining. The Colonel’s narrative provides the only real weakness in the novel. His sudden unburdening of himself appears uncharacteristic since he has been previously portrayed as a taciturn man who is isolated from his own children, one who shows more interest in his stamp collection than in his daughters.
Alan Bradley Interview Hints at Future Buckshaw Chronicles Titles
In an interview in the Vancouver newspaper Georgia Straight, Bradley reveals his plans for developing The Buckshaw Chronicles. “I wanted to focus on some bygone aspect of British life that was still there in the ’50s but has now vanished,” claims Bradley, citing postage stamps, traveling puppet shows, film-making and village churches as such "bygone aspects" that his series will include.
Buckshaw Chronicles Titles Listed
The Bukowski Agency, which represents Bradley, has provided further information on the forthcoming titles in The Buckshaw Chronicles. In The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, scheduled for release in 2010, Flavia investigates a death occurring when traveling puppet show comes to Bishop’s Lacey. In Hang, Gypsy! Dance, Gypsy! (2011) she encounters a Gypsy woman who set up camp at Buckshaw and is later accused of a local child’s abduction and murder. Further series releases will be entitled Seeds of Antiquity, Death In Camera and The Nasty Light of Day.
About Alan Bradley
Born in Toronto, Alan Bradley worked as the Director of Television Engineering in the media center at the University of Saskatchewan. He remained there for 25 years before retiring in 1994 to start a writing career. In Ms Holmes of Baker Street (2004) he and his co-author, William A.S. Sarjeant, propose the controversial theory that Sherlock Holmes was a woman. In A Shoebox Bible (2006) he provides a personal memoir of a family without a father. Bradley now lives in British Columbia with his wife, Shirley, and their two cats.
Citation
Bradley, C. Alan. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. New York: Delacourt, 2009. ISBN-13:9780385342308
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