The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

Flavia de Luce, girl chemist with a possibly unhealthy interest in death is on the case again. In this sequel to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a puppet show run by the charismatic and crippled by polio Rupert comes to town. His assistant Nialla has been placed in a desperate position.
When Rupert ends up dead, Flavia is left to untangle the strings of this mystery. Rupert may be more than just a passerby, his history and the history of the inhabitants of Bishop Lacy prove to be tangled together. The mysterious death of a village boy, the mad woman in the woods, and secret liaisons all conspire to make a puzzle for Flavia to solve.

I very much enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and was interested in seeing how Bradley would follow it up. He continues to explore Flavia's unique skills and talents. We gain insight into her thought process and her talent with chemical equations. Also though, Bradley expands on her emotional life as well in this volume. Her anxiety over her relationship with her sisters and her questions about the mother she never knew are touched on.
Some of the Bishop Lacey residents of the first novel appear again, but we are introduced to other locals who each help Flavia piece together the solutions to the Rupert's death as well as a death from half a decade before.
Though perhaps, lacking some of the dramatic tension of the first novel, it's still a fun read. Bradley's chapters move quickly, each one fairly short and moving. There are some satisfying twists that may come as a surprise. The solution to the mystery, however left me with mixed feelings, especially over how the murderer should be punished.
The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag is a fun, quick read that takes you back into the world of Flavia de Luce, a charismatic, but flawed and surprising believable young girl with remarkable skills. The third book A Red Herring Without Mustard will go on my TBR list. Sequels don't always live up to the quality of the first, but this novel came fairly close.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Sorry for the silence this past week-- I've been absurdly preoccupied. This is a novel I checked out of the public library a few days ago.

In his debut novel, Alan Bradley offers his readers the eleven year old Flavia de Luce. A precocious young girl, she is the youngest of three daughters, heavily occupied with chemistry. Her father, a widower and stamp enthusiast is alarmed when on a summer afternoon, their cook finds a dead Jack Snipe with a postage stamp skewered on its beak. That night Flavia overhears an argument in her father's study. The following morning she is fascinated to find a man in their garden's cucumber patch. With his dying breath he mutters a mysterious word and Flavia is off on the adventure of her life.
Though young and occasionally unkind, Flavia is irresistible. The reader follows her around town on her trusty bicycle, Gladys, while she conduct interviews and searches for clues in her private investigation. Bradley's mystery has plenty of layers of intrigue to keep the reader engaged while Flavia untangles the web.
Though the occasional plot thread proves to be dropped without much ceremony, it is an excellent mystery novel. Truly character driven, you read not just to find a killer, but to discover more about the cast of three dimensional figures Bradley creates. Energetically written, the 370 pages went quickly. There is a sequel out now, hopefully Bradley will be able to recapture what made this novel special again.