NextRead Rotating Header Image

Promo: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Orion)

Mar 6th, 2009
by gav.

 

thesweetnessatthebottomofthepie The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Published 22 January 2009 by Orion

It is June 1950 and a sleepy English village is about to be awakened by the discovery of a dead body in Colonel de Luce’s cucumber patch. The police are baffled, and when a dead snipe is deposited on the Colonel’s doorstep with a rare stamp impaled on its beak, they are baffled even more. Only the Colonel’s daughter, the precocious Flavia -when she’s not plotting elaborate revenges against her nasty older sisters in her basement chemical laboratory, that is – has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim’s identity, and a conspiracy that reached back into the de Luce family’s murky past. Flavia and her family are brilliant creations, a darkly playful and wonderfully atmospheric flavour to a plot of delightful ingenuity.

Comment:

Firstly, how did I miss this in the first place?? And secondly, I wonder why I’m attracted to more old school detection?. Anyway this has some great reviews and a seemingly unique take on the genre :)

Links:

the guardian

Material Witness

Wander Coyote

GoodReads

Posted in: promo.

←
→
  • It doesn't tend to bother me - but then I don't have a build in proof reader and a lot of things that I probably should stop I don't - hence the typos on this blog.

    I might have to pick up the paperback/paperback ebook priced edition :)
  • It doesn't tend to bother me - but then I don't have a build in proof reader and a lot of things that I probably should stop I don't - hence the typos on this blog.

    I might have to pick up the paperback/paperback ebook priced edition :)
  • David Cronan
    There are minor irritants but for me they do distract somewhat from the flow of the story because, instead of reading the story as it should be, I keep looking for yet more "Americisams". Perhaps I am too pedantic! I have found more of them, but I won't bore you with them.
  • David Cronan
    There are minor irritants but for me they do distract somewhat from the flow of the story because, instead of reading the story as it should be, I keep looking for yet more "Americisams". Perhaps I am too pedantic! I have found more of them, but I won't bore you with them.
  • Hi David,

    Thanks for the break down of the un-Englishness - do you think that they are minor irritants? or did they spoil your enjoyment?
  • Hi David,

    Thanks for the break down of the un-Englishness - do you think that they are minor irritants? or did they spoil your enjoyment?
  • David
    Quite a good book but there a few things which to my mind show that the author does not come from England, but from North America.

    For instance you call the doctor who is called-out to view the body in the garden the "coroner". This is not correct. He would be called either the "pathologist" or just doctor. In England the Coroner is the person who presides over an inquest and it not always a medical man, but sometimes a lawyer or solicitor,

    Another phrase that did not seem right concerned the opening hours of the library. In the book it's shown as "Thursday through Saturday". That is definitely a North American terminology. In England it would be "Thursday to Saturday".

    Other points:- we never call it the "Times of London", just the "Times" and we never use the word "lumber". it's either "wood" or "timber"

    Also, why isn't Flavia not at school? She is only 11 and the story tales place in early June.
  • David
    Quite a good book but there a few things which to my mind show that the author does not come from England, but from North America.

    For instance you call the doctor who is called-out to view the body in the garden the "coroner". This is not correct. He would be called either the "pathologist" or just doctor. In England the Coroner is the person who presides over an inquest and it not always a medical man, but sometimes a lawyer or solicitor,

    Another phrase that did not seem right concerned the opening hours of the library. In the book it's shown as "Thursday through Saturday". That is definitely a North American terminology. In England it would be "Thursday to Saturday".

    Other points:- we never call it the "Times of London", just the "Times" and we never use the word "lumber". it's either "wood" or "timber"

    Also, why isn't Flavia not at school? She is only 11 and the story tales place in early June.
blog comments powered by Disqus