Book #16 - The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag

When we drove to Canada recently, I realized that there wouldn't be kids in the car (translation: I would not have to listen -- sorry -- GET to listen to endless hours of Laurie Berkner or The (new) Muppets).  And I knew it was a long enough drive that it was likely D would want to snooze (translation: I could listen to books on CD, which put him to sleep anyway...).

So I wandered around the audio book section at our library, trying to figure out what would be fun, interesting, new, and accessible via audio.  Finally I landed on the second book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series by Alan Bradley, which is The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag.  [I only ended up listening to the first 1/3, so had to go to the library to get the actual paper book, to find out what happened!]

For the uninitiated:  Flavia de Luce is a 10-11 year old English girl, living in a run-down manor (? castle?) in the countryside of England, with her widower-ed* father and mean older sisters.  Flavia is passionate about (and talented with -- which is handy, when you're solving murder mysteries...) chemistry.  The novels are set in the 1940-50s (just a bit later than the Maisie Dobbs novels).

This is most definitely a series, so no one would (translation: should) jump into it with the second novel, so I am not going to go into a plot summary.  But here are two thoughts:
1)  I always thought this was a YA series, and was quite surprised to be sent downstairs to the Mystery section to find the novel.  That is not a testament to the quality of the writing -- more to the voice of the narrator / hero.
2)  I am interested in reading the third novel in the series, but I also somehow completely forgot about the series between reading the first one (2-3 years ago) and this one.  As usual, not sure if this is about me as a reader or the author's gripping ability, but I'm just throwing it out there.  To the ~twelve people who glance at this blog.

*WTH is the adjective of "widower"?