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Can we just pause a moment for us all to have a little cry that Alan Bradley is gone and the story of Flavia de Luce has reached an end? It has been an incredible ride: a light and enjoyable foray on Gladys, with lovely views and occasional mild bumps on the English terrain. And plenty of chuckles, even solid laughs. Ah, Flavia.
If you haven’t read any of these delightfully entertaining mysteries whose amateur sleuth is a precocious tween girl who loves chemistry, please go to book one, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and commence reading. You will thank me.
Most of the books in this series of an even dozen (plus a bonus novella) were simple murder mysteries set in or near the small village where Flavia lives. But a few got into bigger topics, involving her parents and other family members and things they had been secretly involved in. Numb Were the Beadsman’s Fingers goes back to just a simple little murder investigation, continuing the recently introduced collaboration between Flavia and Dogger, her father’s friend and devoted family butler/gardener/driver/all-round handyman at her crumbling home, Buckshaw.
In this final book (pause for a sob), a nun at Golgotha House, where the cloistered are silent, is dead. When some of her sisters go to prepare her body for burial, it is discovered that Sister Garance… was a “brother.” And the man’s body had many scars, even from bullets.
Flavia hears about it from the vicar’s wife and is lucky indeed when the Reverend Mother invites Arthur Dogger and Associates to investigate.
The truth lies in a decades-old crime in another country, and Flavia finds a variety of ways to get at her conclusion.
I wish we could have had more books with Flavia working with Dogger; the two make a very satisfying pair: the quiet but gentle man who’s still haunted by the war is a perfect foil for the young and more brash Flavia, still learning about so many things. Though, even as she is a bit impetuous and excitable, she has grown quite a bit through the past few years herself, losing her father, gaining an estate, discovering complicated secrets, etc. It’s been sweet to see her mature, even in the fairly short time span in the books.
This novel was nothing complicated; it was just a simple mystery. But Numb Were the Beadsman’s Fingers ended the series on a good note, with things settled for a while for Flavia and her family and friends. Thank you, Alan Bradley, and rest in peace.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes an instance of moderate profanity and one use of British profanity. There is no sexual content. Violence is mild, with a potential murder and flashbacks to previous crimes.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
