The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

by Alan Bradley

Part of Flavia de Luce, book 2

First published 2010

Flavia de Luce believes her detective days in Bishop's Lacey are finished until puppeteer Rupert Porson meets his end through electrocution. The eleven-year-old chemistry enthusiast abandons her laboratory experiments and plots against her older sisters to investigate the suspicious death. Mounting her bicycle Gladys, she pedals away from the family's decaying mansion to uncover the village's most dangerous secrets. Her suspects include a mad woman dwelling in Gibbet Wood, a vicar tending to a catatonic woman in the dovecote, and Porson's unstable assistant Nialla. A German pilot fixated on the Brontë sisters, a bitter spinster aunt, and a box of deadly chocolates complicate the case further. The clues connect to an unsolved death from years past that stumped local police. As Flavia draws closer to identifying the killer orchestrating this deadly performance, she risks becoming the next victim in a game where she may have finally met her match.

Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, detective

Vibes: cozy, suspenseful, thought-provoking

Tropes: amateur-detective, found-family

Setting: Bishop's Lacey, Gibbet Wood

Period: 20th-century

364 pages · Hardcover · Delacorte Press

More by Alan Bradley

• A Study in Sherlock
• Speaking from Among the Bones
• The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
• As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
• Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd
• The Grave's a Fine and Private Place
• The Golden Tresses of the Dead
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

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