They ought to constitute an oxymoron, but sometimes humor and murder pair up nicely. This month, we'll look at three new books that blend comedy and criminal mischief: Alan Bradley follows his successful debut novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, with a new Flavia De Luce adventure; G. M. Malliet offers an academic sendup with a Cambridge University setting; and while it's not exactly crime fiction, a collection of essays from America's doyenne of legal thrillers, Lisa Scottoline, will certianly tickle your funny bone.
Alan Bradley's smart, funny Flavia de Luce again copes with her bothersome older sisters and the adult world in his delightful second novel, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (Delacorte, $24). Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie won the Debut Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. That was an auspicious debut for the author, now in his early seventies, and his second novel confirms the promise of the first. Bradley plans four more adventures in what he calls The Buckshaw Chronicles, named after the family's home.
Young Flavia, like her sisters Ophelia (Feely) and Daphne (Daffy), has special talents. Ophelia favors the muse of music, and Daphne explores literature at every turn. Eleven-year-old Flavia has a knack for chemistry, especially poisons.
Flavia fell in love with the science the first time she discovered the amazing Victorian chemistry laboratory assembled by her deceased mother's Uncle Tar and left untouched since his death. That laboratory and all its possibilities have become Flavia's sole province in the strange household, and she delights in unlocking nature's secrets.
Sharp-witted, curious, and manipulative, Flavia trades insults and mischief with her older sisters, who often treat her with the kind of cruelty only siblings can manage.
When famous puppeteer Rupert Porson's van breaks down, stranding him and his beautiful assistant Nialla in Bishop's Lacy, they are persuaded to mount a few performances at St. Tancred, the local church. Porson's The Magic Kingdom is a popular television show, and his appearance is a major event in the village.
Needless to say, Flavia is involved from the beginning, helping set up the show, asking questions, and observing everything from the bruises on Nialla's arms to the lack of a wedding ring on her finger. When a fatal fall suddenly ruins Porson's performance before a packed house, the death leaves the police and Flavia wondering if it was an accident or murder. Once again Flavia arrives at the answer before the police, and despite Inspector Hewitt's treating her like a little girl instead of the "seasoned" investigator she is, she helps unravel the mystery.
Bradley is a writer of great charm and insight, and he infuses even minor characters with indelible personality. He peppers his prose with gently funny gems: "Drusilla was a very great reader of English novels. She consumed books like a whale eats krill." Flavia de Luce, both eleven and ageless, is a marvel and a delight.
G. M. Malliet, who once attended Oxford and has a graduate degree from the University of Cambridge, certainly has the proper background for creating the fictional, poor St. Michael's College located at Cambridge. It is there that wealthy alumni have assembled to have their pockets picked by the administration in Death at the Alma Mater (Midnight Ink, $14.95).
St. Michael's, one of the lesser known of Cambridge's thirty-two colleges, has never achieved the fame or the wealth of its better-known counterparts. The college "had been remarkable only in that so many third-rate minds had managed to assemble under one roof." Now in desperate financial straits, its trinity of leaders—Dr. D.X.L. Marburger, Master of St. Michaels; Mr. Bowles, the college bursar; and the Reverend Dr. Otis, the college dean—hatch a plan to restore solvency. A select (read: wealthy) group of alumni are invited to the college for a special weekend in order that they may repay the honor with generous donations.
The eight guests are scholars, social celebrities, and Internet entrepreneurs: Sir James Bassett, author, and his wife, India; Lexy Laurant, socialiate (and Sir James's first wife), and her companion, Geraldo Valentiano; Gwennap Pengelly, a television crime reporter; Hermione Jax, an academic of impeccable moral standards; Constance Dunning, American whiner, and her ever-patient husband, Karl; and Augie Crumb, brash American cowboy and dot-com millionaire.
The guests bring plenty of emotional baggage along with their wealth, with the scandalous triangle of Sir James, India, and Lexy leading the way. Among the few collegians still in residence during the summer is the canny Portia De'Ath, a visiting fellow, and the romantic interest of Detective Chief Inspector Arthur St. Just of the Cambridgeshire police.
When beautiful Lexy is found strangled near the college's boathouse, St. Just is called in to investigate and discovers plenty of suspects and uncooperative witnesses, all of whom seem to have perfectly sound alibis. As St. Just delicately probes the tangled relationships among the suspects, both from their collegiate past and their seemingly successful present, Portia provides trenchant descriptions based on her brief observations of the visitors.
Malliet is dead on target with her characterizations of the penny-pinching bursar, the muddle-headed dean, and the officious master. Moreover, the writer's splendid array of prestigious alumni gives her ample opportunities for wit and satire. St. Just produces an elegant and convincing solution that unmasks the killer. Malliet's light touch and artful prose echo Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night.
Lisa Scottoline is best known for her legal thrillers, including her eleven-volume series featuring the all-women Philadelphia law firm, Rosato and Associates, and chilling stand-alone suspense novels like Look Again. In Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog (St. Martin's, $21.99), a collection of her newspaper columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Scottoline shows off her funny side. The book is subtitled The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman, and it is clear from the columns that Scottoline's problems may be ordinary, but her responses are not.
Scottoline copes with struggles familiar to us all—an aging parent, a child becoming an adult, marriage, divorce, pets, shopping, minor embarrassments—with a healthy sense of (sometimes exasperated) humor, written in a style that makes you feel like you're listening to a good friend.
A few clues to Scottoline's mystery-writing habits are sprinkled in various columns: When she gets stuck, she resorts to "mindless tasks" to give herself a break. Tasks like giving her pony, Buddy, a shearing: "Mental patients get better haircuts, and a close second are condemned prisoners."
Her path to success as a writer involved excessive use of credit cards, but eventually her debts were repaid and she qualified for a "starter" American Express card—one with a "thousand dollar credit limit and training wheels."
Fans of Scottoline's novels will enjoy this opportunity to see the very human, very appealing, down-to-earth woman who is the reality behind the fiction.