Kathryn's Reviews > The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Wow. It's been a long time since I have been this baffled about the hype surrounding a book. I think I'll just use points.
*This book was something that a good mystery novel should never be: slow. The murder was discovered in the 2nd chapter but the true investigation and suspense didn't start until about 180 pages into the book! The entire first half of the book is filled with the introduction of many inconsequential characters and Flavia riding around on Gladys. That is unacceptable as far as I'm concerned.
*Bradley really needs to take it easy with the similes. There was one in every other sentence. It was extremely annoying and added nothing to the story. To me it seemed like an attempt on his part to make the novel "literary". What made them more annoying was their obscurity. Now, I would like to consider myself a well-read person. I understood pretty much all of the allusions made. But I had to think about each one and that would often distract me from the narrative.
*The characters are nothing more than stereotypes. Ophelia, the superficial teen. Daphne, the bookish nerd. Colonel de Luce, the distant-but-fragile father and widower. The list goes on.
*Furthermore, some characters manage to be downright unbelievable. Thirteen-year old Daphne de Luce has read Frazer's The Golden Bough? Really? ALL of it? And how is it that Flavia thinks, talks and acts like an old woman when she is only supposed to be 11? I don't care how precocious she is supposed to be. She seems far too jaded and knowledgeable about the world to be as young as that.
*Don't even get me started about Flavia. Why would a police inspector open up so much to a little girl? Wouldn't Miss Mountjoy have boxed Flavia's ears for being such an impertinent little girl when she asked about her uncle? Instead, Bradley wants us to believe that the woman would break down and tell Flavia everything over hot chocolate and biscuits.
*On top of everything else, the mystery itself was really uninteresting. Maybe I've been spoiled by reading too many Agatha Christie novels but I didn't have any deep desire to uncover the murderer in this novel. I actually had it figured out long before Flavia did. There was a lack of suspects and the murderer was basically the only person it ever could have been. I honestly felt let down by the end of this novel. It was as if I'd read through nearly 400 pages for nothing.

Needless to say, I'm not too keen on reading Flavia's next outing as a sleuth. If I do end up reading it, it will be a library copy. I certainly won't be buying it like I did this first one. Oh well. Alan Bradley is a good writer - just not a good mystery writer. And at least it has a nice cover.