A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia De Luce Novel by Alan Bradley

Author:Alan Bradley [Bradley, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Young Adult, Adult, Historical, Humour
ISBN: 0752897152
Amazon: B004C43FTS
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 2011-02-08T06:00:00+00:00

“Teeth!” I would shout, because Daffy had cheated and whispered the answer in my ear.

That, of course, was in the days before my sisters began to dislike me.

Later came the darker verses:

One’s joy, two’s grief,

Three’s marriage; four’s a death.

The answer was “magpies.” We had seen four of these birds land on the roof while having a picnic on the lawn, and my sisters had made me memorize the lines before they would allow me to dig into my dish of strawberries.

I didn’t yet know what death was, but I knew that their verses gave me nightmares. I suppose it was these little rhymes, learned at an early age, that taught me to be good at puzzles. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the nursery rhyme riddle is the most basic form of the detective story. It’s a mystery stripped of all but the essential facts. Take this one, for instance:

As I was going to St. Ives

I met a man with seven wives.

Each wife had seven sacks

Each sack had seven cats

Each cat had seven kits.

Kits, cats, sacks, wives

How many were going to St. Ives?

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