A Red Herring Without Mustard - Alan Bradley

Synopsis from Borders.com: In the third installment of Bradley's bestselling series, Flavia de Luce must clear a woman's name to prevent a grave injustice, while trying herself to avoid an early (and unjust) grave.Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-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.


I, of course, read this novel without having read the previous two. I'm not sure if that hindered my enjoyment of it or not.

I enjoyed Flavia's character. She is precocious and likeable. Her sisters (and even her father), on the other hand, not so much. The de Luce family history is one of the parts I do feel I was lacking from not having read the previous two novels.
Overall, though, I have to say the book was just okay. I don't read a lot of mysteries (usually more political espionage or true crime), so that may be why. I was able to figure out most of the mystery before it was revealed and really had little to no attachment and saw no development in any of the characters.