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As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust: A Flavia…
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As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust: A Flavia de Luce Novel (edition 2015)

by Alan Bradley (Author)

Series: Flavia de Luce (7)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,43112712,868 (3.84)177
Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Flavia de Luce—“part Harriet the Spy, part Violet Baudelaire from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” (The New York Times Book Review)—takes her remarkable sleuthing prowess to the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools in this captivating mystery.

Banished! is how twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce laments her predicament, when her father and Aunt Felicity ship her off to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, the boarding school that her mother, Harriet, once attended across the sea in Canada. The sun has not yet risen on Flavia’s first day in captivity when a gift lands at her feet. Flavia being Flavia, a budding chemist and sleuth, that gift is a charred and mummified body, which tumbles out of a bedroom chimney. Now, while attending classes, making friends (and enemies), and assessing the school’s stern headmistress and faculty (one of whom is an acquitted murderess), Flavia is on the hunt for the victim’s identity and time of death, as well as suspects, motives, and means. Rumors swirl that Miss Bodycote’s is haunted, and that several girls have disappeared without a trace. When it comes to solving multiple mysteries, Flavia is up to the task—but her true destiny has yet to be revealed.
Praise for As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
“Flavia de Luce [is] perhaps contemporary crime fiction’s most original character—to say she is Pippi Longstocking with a Ph.D. in chemistry (speciality: poisons) barely begins to describe her.”Maclean’s
“Another treat for readers of all ages . . . [As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust] maintains the high standards Bradley set from the start.”Booklist
“Exceptional . . . [The] intriguing setup only gets better, and Bradley makes Miss Bodycote’s a suitably Gothic setting for Flavia’s sleuthing. Through it all, her morbid narrative voice continues to charm.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Even after all these years, Flavia de Luce is still the world’s greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth.”The Seattle Times
“Plot twists come faster than Canadian snowfall. . . . Bradley’s sense of observation is as keen as gung-ho scientist Flavia’s. . . . The results so far are seven sparkling Flavia de Luce mysteries.”Library Journal.
… (more)
Member:nysmith
Title:As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust: A Flavia de Luce Novel
Authors:Alan Bradley (Author)
Info:Delacorte Press (2015), Edition: First Edition, First Printing, 416 pages
Collections:Your library, Read but unowned
Rating:
Tags:mystery

Work Information

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley

  1. 01
    Goodbye, Ms. Chips by Dorothy Cannell (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: Flavia de Luce finds suspicious activities at her new Canadian school in As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, while Ellie Haskell investigates at her alma mater in Goodbye, Ms. Chips. Both humor and nostalgia characterize these engaging boarding-school mysteries.… (more)
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» See also 177 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 128 (next | show all)
I did not like this Flavian as well as the others. The mysteries are often just window dressing, the fun part being spending time with Flavia, particularly in the lab. I felt the lack of buckthorn & it's inhabitants ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
Another charming addition to the series. ( )
  dhenn31 | Jan 24, 2024 |
I've really, really liked all of the books up until this one. This one is just completely different in a lot of ways, and none of them were to my liking. It was confusing - she's sent to a school in Toronto, but she doesn't seem to actually ... learn anything? The new characters don't have a lot of depth, and all of characters we know from the other books are missing. It was just disappointing. ( )
  karenhmoore | Jan 1, 2024 |
This seventh volume in the Flavia de Luce series started off promisingly with her exile to a girl's school in Canada where she was to learn some of the skills she would need to take on her role in the government secret service organisation to which her deceased mother belonged, as we learned in volume 6. Things get moving pretty quickly with the discovery of a dead body up a chimney. Even the identity of said body is in doubt, as three girls have apparently disappeared from the school a few years before.

Flavia is cut off from her normal milieu and one of my favourite fictional characters, Dogger, her father's valet and Flavia's mentor. The dynamic is very different: she is not whizzing around on her bicycle Gladys and querying adults - there are other girls to deal with, some of whom also seem to be in training for the same security service. However, none of them become soul mates to Flavia's and our disappointment and the uncertainty about the victim and murderer persists until late on in the story when it is rather abruptly resolved involving a character who was so throw away earlier on, I couldn't even recall their appearance. I also couldn't fathom why she and possibly others had changed their identities so that part of it remains a muddle. So although I enjoyed most of the story, as with volume 6 I found the ending rather anti-climactic. Hence only a 4-star rating. ( )
  kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |
I should maybe have paced myself instead of ordering every book in the series from the library - and skipping to the end when the seventh novel was available before the fourth - but I'm already stalled with Flavia (and I now realise that I have been pronouncing her name wrong all along but will continue to do so). I don't know if the second book, which I read first, was when the character peaked but she is more obnoxious than precocious now. Shifting the story to a boarding school in Canada didn't help either. I am going to read book six because I want to know the details about Flavia's mother but after that, I'm done. ( )
  AdonisGuilfoyle | Sep 25, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 128 (next | show all)
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Alan Bradleyprimary authorall editionscalculated
Entwistle, JayneNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Heikinheimo, MaijaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust. (William Shakespeare, "Cymbeline (IV.ii) "
Dedication
To Shirley, with love and gratitude
First words
If you're anything like me, you adore rot.
Quotations
“Ghosts are most often seen by girls, and certain young men with an iron deficiency.”
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Flavia de Luce—“part Harriet the Spy, part Violet Baudelaire from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” (The New York Times Book Review)—takes her remarkable sleuthing prowess to the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools in this captivating mystery.

Banished! is how twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce laments her predicament, when her father and Aunt Felicity ship her off to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy, the boarding school that her mother, Harriet, once attended across the sea in Canada. The sun has not yet risen on Flavia’s first day in captivity when a gift lands at her feet. Flavia being Flavia, a budding chemist and sleuth, that gift is a charred and mummified body, which tumbles out of a bedroom chimney. Now, while attending classes, making friends (and enemies), and assessing the school’s stern headmistress and faculty (one of whom is an acquitted murderess), Flavia is on the hunt for the victim’s identity and time of death, as well as suspects, motives, and means. Rumors swirl that Miss Bodycote’s is haunted, and that several girls have disappeared without a trace. When it comes to solving multiple mysteries, Flavia is up to the task—but her true destiny has yet to be revealed.
Praise for As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
“Flavia de Luce [is] perhaps contemporary crime fiction’s most original character—to say she is Pippi Longstocking with a Ph.D. in chemistry (speciality: poisons) barely begins to describe her.”Maclean’s
“Another treat for readers of all ages . . . [As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust] maintains the high standards Bradley set from the start.”Booklist
“Exceptional . . . [The] intriguing setup only gets better, and Bradley makes Miss Bodycote’s a suitably Gothic setting for Flavia’s sleuthing. Through it all, her morbid narrative voice continues to charm.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Even after all these years, Flavia de Luce is still the world’s greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth.”The Seattle Times
“Plot twists come faster than Canadian snowfall. . . . Bradley’s sense of observation is as keen as gung-ho scientist Flavia’s. . . . The results so far are seven sparkling Flavia de Luce mysteries.”Library Journal.

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