The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the second in the Flavia de Luce mystery series. It’s a charming little story, equal parts creepy and pastoral, as is the golden age tradition.
There are some gems of hidden metaphorical resonance. Sympathetic vibrations between puppetry and death by hanging. With Jack and the Beanstalk: the past as giantland, a dead son as Jack, an abusive womanizer as the giant. Flavia, I think, is the singing harp from the story. I don’t know. That’s the thing with mysterious internal resonances; you don’t know.
The one structural problem is that there’s nothing that compels the sleuth’s involvement. For Flavia, nothing is at stake. She likes getting into everybody’s business, and she loves murder, and that’s all. So there’s a lack of tension that comes from that. Flavia could walk away from the whole affair at any moment and be none the worse for wear.
And there’s a way the author has of moving Flavia around the setting like a chess piece. She needs to be there to see X, Y and Z and by gum, she’s going to get there on her trusty bicycle! She has no real reason to go to these places except nosiness. And that gets you a certain amount, because it’s a well-established character trait. But it doesn’t pay for all the scene changes the author tries to buy with it.
I call it a fun entry in the detective fiction canon. Recommended for those who enjoy precocious children and dark secrets.
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