The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: The gripping first novel in the cosy Flavia De Luce series

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a lighthearted and entertaining sleuth story centered around an 11 year old girl Flavia and her family set in rural 1950's England. We felt it was a cross between an Agatha Christie novel and the TV series, Jonathan Creek. The twist of crime novel and illusion made for an interesting read. We agreed that Alan Bradley caught the essence of life in 1950's rural England, and were surprised to read that gleaned this information from books he read as a child in Canada. A good summer holiday read.

What a wizard wheeze! Five Go Mad on Mescaline meets Agatha Blyton meets Molesworth meets Enid Christie. All pish and nonsense in the end of course but I loved it. The rest of my reading group loved it too. The worst that could be said of it was that it was charming. Two members of the group were so enchanted by it they bought the rest of the set! Another member took her copy on holiday to Spain and giggled so much by the pool 2 fellow guests at the same hotel wanted to borrow it before she came home! Not one of us had a bad word for this book, not one of us.