How I do love the Flavia series! I bought this novel No. 4 several months ago and have been "saving it." Now that book No. 5 is soon to come out in paperback, I am indulging myself, with the knowledge that more will come soon. I truly admire Alan Bradley's writing.A few of the cleverest quotations:"I had noticed on other occasions that overcrowding, even in a spacious place, makes one feel like a different person. Perhaps, I thought, whenever we began to breathe the breath of others, when the spinning atoms of their bodies began to mingle with our own, we took on something of their personality, like crystals in a snowflake. Perhaps we became something more, yet something lesser than ourselves.""The fetching of water at a birth was, I had learned from the cinema and countless plays on the wireless, a ritual that might as well have been the Eleventh Commandment, though why BOILING water was invariably specified was beyond me. It seemed hardly likely to be used to baste the mother without risk of serious burns, and it was simply beyond belief that a newborn would be immersed in a liquid having a temperature of 212 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale--unless, of course, that was the reason for newly delivered babies having that lobsterish color I'd seen in the cinema."Another great one! Flavia de Luce is an eleven-year-old, who has a passion for chemistry and a penchant for solving crimes. She is determined to catch Saint Nick, and her plan is coming along nicely ... however because her father is trying to keep their once-grand mansion Buckshaw, the house is full of movie people. Someone is found murdered by film ... Flavia is on the case. I give this book 3 1/2 stars, and would recommended it to my 13 year old niece who enjoys mysteries.
Do You like book I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows (2011)?
Bradley's best yet. Can't wait to read the next installment. More Flavia please.
—jpollinany
Another fabulous Flavia mystery. Everyone should read these.
—amy
