Alan Bradley masterfully channels the interior life of an extremely intelligent young girl growing up under eccentric circumstances as she grapples with her burgeoning emotional maturity ... The Golden Tresses Of The Dead is as delightful a caper as any tale of severed fingers and purloined letters could possibly be. Along with strong character studies and the fascinating chemistry lessons that are a hallmark of the series, this volume also included quite a bit of information on the London Necropolis Railway and other assorted trivia. It’s always fun to feel like I’ve learned something while solving crimes with our winning heroine, and I can’t wait to read more!
...delightful ... The mysteries in Mr. Bradley’s books are engaging, but the real lure is Ms. de Luce, the irreverent youngster given to such pithy Flavia-isms as: 'Great music has much the same effect upon humans as cyanide. . . . It paralyzes the respiratory system.'
Despite the novel’s patently improbable plot, Flavia’s over-the-top use of alliteration...and proudly precocious, sesquipedalian vocabulary...along with the thoroughly endearing cast of characters, make this series’ tenth installment a laugh-out-loud winner. Fans of the brainy Flavia, who 'dotes on death,' will also enjoy the precocious child narrators and mysterious, twisty plots that abound in Annie Hartnett’s Rabbit Cake (2017) and Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette (2012).
Alan Bradley's impressive knowledge of English history and literature sheds light on the funeral trains, burial customs and graveyards of England’s ancient past ... But we can forgive this overdose of references to enjoy the mere delight that Flavia de Luce brings to the page.
Perhaps the most consistently hilarious adventure of the alarmingly precocious heroine, who’s capable of confiding in her readers with a perfectly straight face: 'I don’t know if you’ve ever dissected a rat, but to me, there was only one word for it: exhilarating.'
A ghoulish question is at the heart of Bradley’s excellent 10th Flavia de Luce novel ... Bradley, who has few peers at combining fair-play clueing with humor and has fun mocking genre conventions, shows no sign of running out of ideas.
