The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley ISBN-13: 9780345539991 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Delacorte Press Released: Jan. 30, 2018

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Flavia is enjoying the summer, spending her days punting along the river with her reluctant family. Languishing in boredom, she drags a slack hand in the water, and catches her fingers in the open mouth of a drowned corpse. Brought to shore, the dead man is found to be dressed in blue silk with ribbons at the knee, and wearing a single red ballet slipper.

Flavia needs to put her super-sleuthing skills to the test to investigate the murder of the dead man as well as an earlier murder of three gossips in the local church. But what could possibly connect the son of an executed killer, a far too canny police constable, a traveling circus, and the publican's poetically talented wife?


My Review:
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place is a historical mystery set in June 1952 in England. This book is the ninth in a series, but you don't need to read the previous novels to understand this one and this novel didn't spoil any previous mysteries.

The main character is a 12-year-old girl who loves chemistry. She has her own chemistry lab at home and can improvise (with the help of a loyal adult servant, who helps her investigate) when away from home. She also enjoys investigating a murder, and she sees it as a competition with the adults. She's manipulative and lies freely to get what she wants because she feels like, as a kid, that's what she has to do to learn what she needs to know. She has quite the imagination, but she puts it to good use. For example, she imagines what the murder must of looked like as it happened.

She's so enthusiastic that it's hard not to like her. She followed up on various clues and put her mind to work until she discovered whodunnit. The scene where she gathered clues from the drowned body was a little gory. There was no sex. There was a very minor amount of British bad language. Overall, I would recommend this interesting and fun mystery


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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