A Red Herring Without Mustard

You've probably noticed by now that I enjoy reading series of books.  Most of these tend to be mysteries.  I think what I like best is learning a little more about the main character(s) in each outing.  It's like visiting with an old friend who still has the ability to surprise and delight you.

A Red Herring Without Mustard (#49) by Alan Bradley falls into this category.  Flavia de Luce makes her third appearance in this book.  Flavia is an eleven year old English girl living in the deteriorating ancestral home Buckshaw just after WWII.  Her mother disappeared in a Tibetan climbing accident before Flavia was old enough to remember her.  Her two older sisters band together to torment Flavia on a daily basis, while her father is so caught up in his stamp collection he barely notices the girls are alive.  Before you feel too sorry for Flavia, though, bear in mind that she is a chemical prodigy with her uncle's lab and equipment at her disposal, and that the company she enjoys the most is her own.  She is intelligent, inquisitive and thoroughly provoking.   She reminds me in some ways of Wednesday, the little girl in the Addams Family cartoons.  Flavia would fit right in there.

This time she visits the chuch fete, where she challenges the gypsy who is telling her fortune.  Flavia manages to set the tent on fire and stops to secretly watch the havoc she's caused when she notices a few odd things.  Flavia is sorry about the fire, so she invites the gypsy to camp on Buckshaw land.  When she returns to the gypsy's caravan before dawn, she finds the old woman badly beaten and clinging to life.  Flavia fetches the doctor and is instrumental in saving the woman's life, but she just can't help poking her nose in and investigating...

Throw in a baby abducted by the gypsies, another body, a strange religious sect that may or may not still be active in the neighborhood, antiques that mysteriously come and go, and some secret doors and passageways at Buckshaw, and you have another satisfying mystery cum chemistry lesson. 

I was really hoping even before I finished his first book The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie that Alan Bradley planned to write more about Flavia Sabina de Luce and so he has.  Another series to add to my favorites!