The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie won the First Dagger award, which prompted my reading. It is a light mystery story involving an 11-year-old girl who’s father is accused of a murder. She solves the murder mostly through legwork and clever deduction. The story is told in the first person, and does a good job of portraying the thoughts, energy, and goals of a child, at least from the perspective of an adult.
The protagonist, Flavia De Luce, is a precocious child and chemistry wiz. She is the daughter of a lower nobleman living in England. She makes the occasional error, which seem very appropriate for this character.
The supporting characters were mostly flat, but also mostly unimportant to the story. Only the inspector and antagonist really played an important role.
I felt the writing did a good job of describing people and the puzzle. The writing flowed well, although the book was a tad on the light side. There was too much information provided early on, making it a little easy to figure out. But the solution was good and made sense.
