THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN’S BAG

Alan Bradley’s second Flavia de Luce mystery. I liked it about as much as I liked the first one, which is to say: fairly well. My favorite part was actually the Sir Walter Raleigh poem that lends the book its title:

To His Son
Three things there be that prosper up apace
And flourish, whilst they grow asunder far,
But on a day, they meet all in one place,
And when they meet, they one another mar;
And they be these: the wood, the weed, the wag.
The wood is that which makes the gallows tree;
The weed is that which strings the hangman’s bag;
The wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee.
Mark well, dear boy, whilst these assemble not,
Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild,
But when they meet, it makes the timber rot,
It frets the halter, and it chokes the child.

Oh, snap!