Flavia, the precocious, imaginative, and adorable 11-year-old sleuth, returns for her second adventure. Its a mystery in itself how a mature male author can pen the adventures of such a young female child and keep readers believing in the fantasy. Flavias world is 1950s Englandspecifically, a very old country house that just happens to have a long-abandoned chemistry laboratory. And Flavia just happens to be fascinated by chemistryparticularly poisons. This helps her solve mysteries because, as Flavia says, Theres something about pottering with poisons that clarifies the mind. This time she becomes involved with the members of a traveling puppet show that features the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. When the puppetmaster is mysteriously electrocuted during the show, Flavia knows it cant be an accident and eventually finds the murderer. The rest of Flavias family are also eccentric, to say the least, and add greatly to the overall fun. Thank goodness Bradley is not allowing Flavia tto grow up too quickly; we need more sleuths whose primary mode of transportation is a bicycle.