by Alan Bradley (Author), Jayne Entwistle (Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)

Audiobook Review

So many people have heard of Alan Bradley‘s fabulous Flavia mysteries that I hardly have to describe them.  I have read many of them out of order, but now I’m trying to fill in the spaces of the unread, so I can go on to his newest one, just published in 2024.

One friend asked me about Flavia in AS CHIMNEY SWEEPERS COME TO DUST. “Does she find a body?”  Well, yes!  She always does!  But what happens afterward is so fascinating to read.

So ghoulishly clever is our Miss de Luce that you can’t help but have spine tingles at some of her experiments and conclusions. She is constantly stumbling on bodies (in a chimney in a girls’ boarding school in Toronto, this time) and cleaning up the mess using deduction and chemistry.  And by sticking in her nose where it shouldn’t be and, of course, breaking all the rules.  Flavia both drastically fails and astonishingly succeeds in this book.

Jayne Entwistle is an excellent narrator.