Book Review - Alan Bradley's The Grave's a Fine and Private Place
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: January 30th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Only Flavia De Luce could catch a corpse in the palm of her hand while punting down a river. Of course she's on the river under duress. Dogger thought that Flavia and her sisters needed a distraction and decided a family trip was what was called for. But one can't help but feel the void, the person who isn't present, the girls' father who succumbed to pneumonia. He might not always have been the best or most present of fathers, but he was still their father and his memory is in every stone of Buckshaw, hence Dogger's enforced family vacation. Though there is one thing Flavia is looking forward to before her hand catches on the biggest distraction of all, a new case! The church they are passing in Volesthorpe, St. Mildred's-in-the-Marsh, is notorious for a recent multiple poisoning case when two years previously the vicar took matters into his own hands and did away with three of his busybody parishioners during communion. Murder! And with poison? It's almost as if the vicar killed these women just to make Flavia's day. But back to the corpse at hand. He's recently deceased and rather flamboyantly dressed in blue silk with ribbons at the knee and a single red ballet slipper. Flavia doesn't mind in the least when the local constabulary ask them to stay on as she discovered the corpse. It will give her plenty of time to investigate while Daphne sits in a room reading whatever book she's got to hand, and Ophelia bemoans her broken engagement. An engagement she broke it might be noted. Plus, Flavia has one up on the police, having taken a scarp of paper from the pocket of the corpse. The corpse is identified as Orlando Whitbread, an up-and-coming actor who happens to be the son of the "poisoning parson!" Constable Otter quickly rules Orlando's death as nothing more than a drowning, which Flavia doesn't buy. She thinks it was poison. And while she's in town, she thinks that perhaps Canon Whitebread didn't poison those three women... But digging into the past could put Flavia in danger.
The Grave is a Fine and Private Place is possibly the strongest of the later entries in this series. Ever since the initial arc was completed in The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches this series has been struggling to find it's identity. It's like Alan Bradley simultaneously wants to let Flavia grow up while also keeping her the Flavia we know and love and this has lead to mixed results. She was sent off to Canada to promptly return, her father was killed unnecessarily in some misguided attempt to make Flavia face her own problems versus nosing into other people's. It's like we're constantly moving one step forward and two steps back. And I get the reasoning, I do. Why change something when it isn't broken? But seeing as the whole series is supposed to only take place over about a year it's stretching credulity, like how many years was That '70s Show treading water pretending it was 1979 because they were not going to become That '80s Show? There's only one Christmas in a year afterall... And the less said about the actual That '80s Show the better. But Flavia can not stay in this enforced stasis forever. And there are two things that point to her actually growing. The first is she actually asks one of her siblings for help. Usually Daphne and Feely are just thorns in her side and to be avoided at all costs. But having them forced together for Dogger's vacation and then locked away in the hotel together has lead to some growth in their relationship. Daffy is the biggest bookworm on the planet and it's her literary knowledge that helps fill in the gaps for Flavia. Because there is a secret bestselling poet amongst the residents of Volesthrope and Daffy knows the significance of the work. Also Dogger and Flavia make a plan for their future. Their future being Arthur Dogger and Associates, a detective agency they will run together. This development makes sense. I mean, the two of them are dropped down in this town of poisoners, failed actors, circus performers, and over-the-top theatricals and they still get to the bottom of the case once again. So why not make a business out of it? Here's hoping that Flavia continues to keep moving forward.
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