A RED HERRING WITHOUT MUSTARD

My feeling for Alan Bradley’s third Flavia de Luce book is pretty consistent with my thoughts on the first two. I can’t resist mid-twentieth-century small-town British novels or intelligent and intrepid girl detectives, so when a new title in this series is released I snap it up at the library with great satisfaction. I’m still not sure I really buy Flavia as a character—not that I expect her to hew to any sort of objective reality for average 11-year-olds; on the contrary, I prefer my literary children as precocious as possible. It’s just that there’s a whiff of artificiality in Bradley’s writing that puts me off at times. I can barely put my finger on it, and if the Internet is to be believed, all of her other readers love Flavia unreservedly, so I may be alone in this opinion. I have a feeling that my increasing addiction to quirky-charming books actually written during this period makes me a bit more critical of modern-day simulations (I had a similar vague feeling about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, if you will recall).

But even if nothing quite beats the real thing, it’s fun to see a mashup of that old-fashioned screwball eccentricity with the whip-smart badassery of good YA heroines today. (One of the things about Flavia that rings most true for me is her relationship with her trusty bicycle, Gladys, which she personifies as adorably as only a lonely kid can: “‘Sorry, old girl,’ I said to Gladys in the gray dishwater light of the early morning, ‘but I have to leave you at home.’ I could see that she was disappointed, even though she managed to put on a brave face. ‘I need you to stay here as a decoy,’ I whispered. ‘When they see you leaning against the greenhouse, they’ll think I’m still in bed.’ Gladys brightened considerably at the thought of a conspiracy...At the corner of the garden, I turned, and mouthed the words, ‘Don't do anything I wouldn't do,’ and Gladys signaled that she wouldn’t.”) This book kept me happily entertained for a couple of days of train commuting, and sometimes that’s enough.