“The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” Alan Bradley

I have been trying to decide whether it was intended for juveniles or adults. The main character is a precocious 11-year-old girl who knows more about chemistry than I ever will and has a full lab to work with in her mother’s decaying English manor. Simply based on that, I would say this book is intended for younger readers, and would compare it to the tone set in the L’Engle series or “Phantom Tollbooth.” On the other hand, the book won the Debut Dagger Award which is given by the Crime Writers’ Association, so they consider this book for adults. The themes are not adult in nature since the narrator is only 11, but as a well-read young girl whose knowledge of history, music and chemistry is extensive, there are many references that the typical young reader might not get, but that would be no different than the Bartimaeus series which makes many historical references. I suspect that it is intended for adults, but adults looking for mystery writing that is gentler than most. I would put this in the neighborhood of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in terms of grittiness.

I’m not saying that a kindler, gentler read is necessarily a bad thing. My tastes have a broad range, and I’ll take the nastiness of, say, Koontz and follow it up with something much mellower like a story about Mma Romatswa. I heard once that one shouldn’t read hard, base literature or watch those sorts of movies because that it what you will become. The actual analogy was that just like eating too much chocolate makes one fat, watching too much violence makes one violent. I don’t believe that, but I do feel the need to let my mind relax from violence, death, destruction, sexual abuse, and other harsh topics with some “mind candy” as my friends call it. Death, abduction and poison aside, “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” is mind candy.

The book is set in a village in 1950s England, postwar, and at a time and place where getting from place to place on foot or bicycle was common. Did I mention this was a sleepy village with typical characters like a cantankerous old librarian who blames everyone for her uncle’s untimely death, a housekeeper that bakes pies that her employers don’t like just so she can take them home to her husband, and a handyman with post-traumatic stress disorder who has trouble knowing whether he is the one who committed the murder or not? Flavia, our young chemist, is intent on solving the crime eschewing the help of adults. The handyman, Dogger, thinks he did it, so Flavia’s father confesses to save Dogger and Flavia confesses to save her father. The police think Flavia is just a child (isn’t she?) and instead of considering her a major player (and the solver of the crime) they spend a lot of time keeping her out of the way.

I think it presumptuous on the part of Bradley to consider this the first book in a series. How does that work? Did ????? assume that she would start at “A is for Alibi” and work her way through the alphabet, or was it that she wrote the first book, it was well received, and then she continued on? There are some unanswered questions in “Sweetness” that make it clear there are more books to follow. Flavia’s mother died a mysterious and distant death that leaves holes begging to be filled. Flavia’s father clearly has more skeleton’s in his closet than Flavia ever imagined. Regardless of these unanswered question, I did not fall in love with Flavia or this book, and I’m willing to live with not knowing more about this family and this village. I can’t imagine that such a quiet village, which Flavia admits has never seen a murder before, could provide the diabolical fodder needed to satisfy the needs of a young detective. I think it would be like the amazing number of murders that happen on TV series such as “Murder, She Wrote.” How can a small town support such a high death rate, and why would someone continue to live in a town with Jessica Fletcher where everyone around her is dying? If you can put reality aside and simply want a light mystery about a likable girl with a penchant for digging into things that will surely lead to trouble, then “Sweetness” is a good read.