A Red Herring Without Mustard
A Flavia de Luce Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jayne Entwistle
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By:
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Alan Bradley
About this listen
Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey - mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard. Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? Had it something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites? While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon another corpse - that of a notorious layabout who had been caught prowling about the de Luce’s drawing room.
Pedaling Gladys, her faithful bicycle, across the countryside in search of clues to both crimes, Flavia uncovers some odd new twists. Most intriguing is her introduction to an elegant artist with a very special object in her possession - a portrait that sheds light on the biggest mystery of all: Who is Flavia?
As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets.
©2011 Alan Bradley (P)2011 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
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Featured Article: The Best Cozy Mysteries to Keep You Warm This Holiday Season
We’ve rounded up a list of some of the best cozy mystery audiobooks to help brighten up your winter listening. Here you'll find contemporary and historical cozies, classic whodunits and ingenious heist stories. While varying in tone, plot, and setting, these picks all share an irresistible holiday atmosphere. You'll find snowstorms galore, bakeries full of tasty holiday treats, glittering get-togethers, and picturesque English villages decked out in their holiday finest.
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One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
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Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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Long Lankin
- By: Lindsey Barraclough
- Narrated by: Anne Flosnik
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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When Cora and her little sister, Mimi, are sent to stay with their great-aunt in the isolated village of Bryers Guerdon, they receive a less than warm welcome and are desperate to go back to London. But Auntie Ida’s life was devastated the last time two young girls were at Guerdon Hall, and now her nieces’ arrival has reawakened an evil that has lain in wait for years. A haunting voice in an empty room; a strange, scarred man lurking in the graveyard; mysterious words scrawled on the walls of the abandoned church ... all point to a horrifying truth that has held Bryers Guerdon in its grip for centuries.
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AMAZING!!!
- By Sharron on 09-06-14
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Hide Me Among the Graves
- By: Tim Powers
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 17 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Winter 1862, London. Adelaide McKee, a former prostitute, arrives on the doorstep of veterinarian John Crawford, a man she met once seven years earlier. Their brief meeting produced a child who, until now, had been presumed dead. McKee has learned that the girl lives - but that her life and soul are in mortal peril from a vampiric ghost. But this is no ordinary spirit; the bloodthirsty wraith is none other than John Polidori, the onetime physician to the mad, bad, and dangerous Romantic poet Lord Byron.
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One More Mortal Sin
- By Dave on 01-31-14
By: Tim Powers
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The Distant Hours
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
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Right Mood At The Right Time
- By Simone on 11-13-12
By: Kate Morton
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Cover Her Face
- By: P. D. James
- Narrated by: Penelope Dellaporta
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Headstrong and beautiful, the young housemaid Sally Jupp is put rudely in her place, strangled in her bed behind a bolted door. Coolly brilliant policeman Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard must find her killer among a houseful of suspects, most of whom had very good reason to wish her ill. Cover Her Face is P. D. James' electric debut novel, an ingeniously plotted mystery that immediately placed her among the masters of suspense.
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OK but...
- By NoelleJ on 11-14-14
By: P. D. James
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Haunted Ground
- By: Erin Hart
- Narrated by: Jennifer McMahon
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When farmers cutting turf in an Irish peat bog make a grisly discovery, the perfectly intact body of a young woman with long red hair, archaeologist Cormac O'Callaghan and pathologist Nora Gavin are thrown together by their shared scientific interest in human remains. Because of the preservative effect of the bog, it is difficult to tell whether the body has lain there for two decades, two centuries, or two millennia.
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Mysteries old and mysteries new
- By Linda on 11-25-03
By: Erin Hart
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Crooked Heart
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
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When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.
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Surviving The Blitz In WWII Great Britain
- By Sara on 04-24-16
By: Lissa Evans
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Named of the Dragon
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- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
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The charm of spending the Christmas holidays in South Wales, with its crumbling castles and ancient myths, seems the perfect distraction from the nightmares that have plagued literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw since the loss of her baby five years ago. Instead she meets an emotionally fragile young widow who's convinced that Lyn's recurring dreams have drawn her to Castle Farm for an important purpose - and she's running out of time.
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Not Kearsley's best
- By Sindy on 06-27-16
By: Susanna Kearsley
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The Peculiar
- By: Stefan Bachmann
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Don't get yourself noticed and you won't get yourself hanged. In the faery slums of Bath, Bartholomew Kettle and his sister Hettie live by these words. Bartholomew and Hettie are changelings - Peculiars - and neither faeries nor humans want anything to do with them. One day a mysterious lady in a plum-colored dress comes gliding down Old Crow Alley. Bartholomew watches her through his window. Who is she? What does she want? And when Bartholomew witnesses the lady whisking away, in a whirling ring of feathers, the boy who lives across the alley - Bartholomew forgets the rules and gets himself noticed.
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An Unexpected Adventure
- By Shannon on 05-30-13
By: Stefan Bachmann
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Egg & Spoon
- By: Gregory Maguire
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Elena Rudina lives in the impoverished Russian countryside. Her father has been dead for years. Her brothers have been conscripted into the Tsar's army and taken as servants in the house of the local wealthy landowner. Her mother is dying, slowly, in their tiny cabin. And there is no food. But then a train arrives in the village, a train carrying untold wealth, a cornucopia of food, and a noble family destined to visit the Tsar in St. Petersburg - a family that includes Ekaterina, a girl of Elena's age.
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Best Book Ever!!!
- By Kindle Customer2 on 10-15-14
By: Gregory Maguire
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Liesl & Po
- By: Kei Acedera, Lauren Oliver
- Narrated by: Jim Dale
- Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Liesl lives in a tiny attic bedroom, locked away by her cruel stepmother. Her only friends are the shadows and the mice - until one night a ghost appears from the darkness. It is Po, who comes from the Other Side. Both Liesl and Po are lonely, but together they are less alone. That same night, an alchemist's apprentice, Will, bungles an important delivery. He accidentally switches a box containing the most powerful magic in the world with one containing something decidedly less remarkable. Will's mistake has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po....
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Great story made better by a great narrator
- By Marie on 09-16-12
By: Kei Acedera, and others
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The Mangle Street Murders
- The Gower Street Detectives, Book 1
- By: M. R. C. Kasasian
- Narrated by: Lindy Nettleton
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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After her father dies, March Middleton has to move to London to live with her guardian, Sidney Grice, the country's most famous private detective. It is 1882, and London is at its murkiest yet most vibrant, wealthiest yet most poverty-stricken. No sooner does March arrive than a case presents itself: A young woman has been brutally murdered, and her husband is the only suspect.
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Witty and clever British mystery
- By Kathi on 03-22-14
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The Pale Blue Eye
- By: Louis Bayard
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When the body of a suicide victim disappears at West Point Military Academy in 1831, only to be discovered hours later missing its heart, the Academy calls on retired detective Gus Landor to investigate. Landor is something of a legend among his peers, noted for an uncanny, Holmesian ability to read people. When Edgar Allan Poe, a new cadet, comes forth with his own cryptic conclusion—that the man Landor is looking for is a poet—Landor is intrigued and enlists Poe as his assistant.
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Could not get through it
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-15
By: Louis Bayard
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What listeners say about A Red Herring Without Mustard
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Anne
- 05-22-11
captivating.
The first two Flavia de Luce novels had me searching for other titles from the same author, searching every few days for a sequel. This is an author that you wait for in anxious anticipation. Jayne Entwistle's voice is the perfect Flavia, and this book in the series does not disappoint.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Travis
- 12-30-16
A Red Herring without Mustard
Great story, though not my absolute favorite in the series, I'm chomping at the bits to listen to the next installment! Even though I found the ending slightly weak, it was a thoroughly satisfying read. Flavia, as always, was brilliant--a perfect mixture of Sherlock Holmes, Violet Baudelaire, and even Shinichi Kudo, (for all those anime fans out there).
While taking some getting used to, having read-not listened-to the first two books, the narrator does an excellent job overall & quickly transports listeners right into the story.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone; though I suggest consuming the first two in the series before jumping head first into this one.
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1 person found this helpful
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- rgh
- 02-19-19
Wonderful story, read by a wonderful narrator.
Jayne Entwistle is a perfect match for Alan Bradley's brilliant, curious, quirky, Flavia. As much as I enjoy reading these stories, the audiobooks are even more fun.
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- Carryn
- 02-25-13
Good story/series, GREAT reader
When I started my first Flavia de Luce book, my thought on hearing the voice of Flavia was, oh no, it's Veruca Salt, can I listen to this for hours? Well, as it turns out, Flavia is a sort of a Veruca Salt who keeps that dark side in check. I admire the author's masterful way of allowing this brilliant mini-chemist/crime solver to outwit the police one minute yet return to being a little girl the next, trying to understand her older sisters' ascent into adulthood and her father dealing with the travails of adult life. She is actually a lonely little girl who misses the dead mother she never knew, gets little attention from her withdrawn father, and whose only friend seems to be her bike, which she has named Gladys. That no one pays particular attention to Flavia allows her to roam around the town poking her nose into the latest scandal or death. For one thinking they are interested in following the series, may I recommend starting at the beginning - though it certainly is not necessary. It's just that I found the actual mystery in this book to take a back seat to small revelations about Flavia as a character. It was nice to have gotten to know her in the previous books to appreciate these details. This series is just great entertainment for any anglophile. Jayne Entwistle is simply astounding in her narration, 5+ starts in my book.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Mickey
- 09-18-12
Ya gotta love Flavia!
Where does A Red Herring Without Mustard rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This series is one of my favorites - although each book is intriguing in it's own right they are best read in order and it is delightful to watch the whole story unfold with each new book. We are watching Flavia grow up. And as I read each book, it is the best.
What was one of the most memorable moments of A Red Herring Without Mustard?
When the children were trapped in the tunnel.
Which scene was your favorite?
The moments when her father begins to recognize Flavia's gifts.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Unraveling the secrets of the families of Bishops Lacey
Any additional comments?
Since this is an audio book I'm not sure of the spelling of the estate.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tobe Malawista
- 10-15-19
I loved it!!!!!
I’m going right on to the next one in the series !!!!!!
Thank you very much.
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- yvonne t tibbs
- 08-07-18
Flavia De Luce is my hero
Flavia De Luce is like Anne of Green Gables on steroids. I love this remarkable yet believable character so much that I plan on following her high jinks and mystery solving to the very end at which time I will mourn the fact that there isn't more. Jayne Entwistle Is perfect as the voice of Flavia and I am amazed at how she can sound like an eleven year old girl in on breath and a middle aged man the next. Great stuff!!
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- Kay
- 05-18-22
Wonderful
I always enjoy this series! Jayne Entwistle is absolutely phenomenal narrating Flavia and the various characters throughout. I don’t think I could ever bring myself to “read” this in print. She makes the whole book so much more enjoyable and entertaining. I love precocious Flavia and her crime solving adventures. I always look forward to hearing the next story.
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Overall
- Cheryl Waters
- 05-16-11
Excellent Adult and Family Fare
Mr. Bradley, in his 70's, has caught the flair of a 12-year-old girl for local adventure, impish pranks, and self-analysis. If you can catch him on a book tour, do so. He is as entertaining in person as he is in his writing, and this series is matchless.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Kathi
- 02-09-14
Precocious little sleuth!
It is challenging to say more about Flavia de Luce than has already been written. She is a precocious 11 year old, who seems to channel parts of the essence of older Bobbsey twins or a younger Nancy Drew--but this time for grownups. I loved Nancy Drew as a kid--and I feel as though this series touches some long forgotten place of delight & admiration I held for that clever adolescent when I was quite young!
Flavia, as most people now know, lives in a huge old house, which is burdened by debt, with her father (who is mostly concerned with his stamp collections), and two older sisters (almost as cruel as Cinderella's step sisters)--except they are full sisters who just spend all their time torturing Flavia, the youngest.
Flavia has been born with a talent and intellect that appear to be genius level, and as fate (and the writer) would have it, she has inherited the curiosity and analytical mind of her (late) Great Uncle Tarquin, who has left behind a full laboratory--complete with chemicals and scholarly books on chemistry. Naturally, by the time she has turned 11, she has mastered all of it--and so, in this rather quirky household, she turns to the laboratory and her knowledge of chemistry (as well as her quick mind for putting puzzles together) to help solve the murders and mysteries that tend to appear with regularity all around her.
In this case, she feels responsible for an old gypsy woman whom she consulted earlier in the day, when she winds up assaulted on the de Luce property in the middle of the night. She wants to find who would do this to her, and in her further adventures in that attempt, she learns of other mysterious doings that all (in the end) touch on the gypsy's plight.
One has to suspend a bit of belief of course, to enjoy the characterization of a child who cleverly solves murders that even elude the police. On the one hand, she has her young age and innocent look to help get her places that perhaps adults could only go with suspicion. She also has her great sidekick, the old bike she has named "Gladys." She has an unusual level of trust by the police (due to her previous successes) and is helped greatly by the family gardener and cook. But mostly, she just noses about, occasionally gets herself into real danger, but comes out in the end with the solution in hand.
While the mysteries are good,and the people (are deliberately--as suits the overall effrect) somewhat two dimensional, the real joy in these is the freshness of approach that Alan Bradley has used to create such a charming little character. And I would say that the narration is particularly difficult--because an adult having to simulate a child's voice through much of the book--cannot be easy. But I think that Jayne Entwhistle has done a wonderful job of achieving a credible child's voice. These are fun to listen to--made a bit easier when all the characters (and their attached personality traits) are absorbed. When I read the first one, I began it with some readiness not to enjoy it. But I have truly enjoyed them--especially for the realization that a grown man has done such an excellent job of creating an 11 year old girl for the heroine!
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3 people found this helpful