Book Review: The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

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I didn't write my book review for April, so here it is--in May.

In April, I read the second book in the Flavia de Luce mysteries series. (You can read my review on The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie on the blog too.) Once again, I urge you to read this series!

In The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley, Flavia de Luce, our eleven year old sleuth chemist in 1950's England, has a run-in with Rupert Porson, a famous puppeteer and "Mother Goose" when their van breaks down. I myself began to long to see a live puppet show as I read Flavia's account of watching a performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk." It seemed magical. All good things come to an end, as I am told, and that is true in the second performance of the story, when Rupert Porson comes tumbling down onto the stage dead instead of the giant.

I've given away enough! Read the story! Flavia continues to try to torture her sister (and I'm tempted to try some of her experiments in my own lab), offers insight on the investigation to the police, and even opens up a little more to us about her feelings about her deceased mother, Harriett. Alan Bradley does a magnificent job portraying this intelligent eleven year old, who also retains her innocence and wide eyed wonder about the world and people.

Now, spoiler alert!

In one of my favorite scenes from the book, Flavia is talking with Dogger about Madame Bovary, a Flaubert novel that her sister Daphne had once read aloud to her and Ophilea. It gave me a chuckle.
"What does an affair entail precisely?" I asked, hoping my choice of words would imply, even slightly, that I already knew the answer.

I thought for a moment that I could outwait him, even though my heart knew that trying to outwait Dogger was a mug's game.

"What did Flaubert mean," I asked at last, "when he said that Madame Bovary gave herself up to Randolphe?"

"He meant," Dogger said, "that they became the greatest of friends. The very greatest of friends."

 "Ah!" I said. "Just as I thought."

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