The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Thorndike Press Large Print Core Series) - Hardcover

Bradley, Alan

3.82

168,758 ratings by Goodreads

9781410419170: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Thorndike Press Large Print Core Series)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410419177 ISBN 13: 9781410419170

Publisher: Thorndike Pr, 2009

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In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.
To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story--of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school's tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder--but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse....
An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions--and a rich literary delight. From the Hardcover edition.

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Review:

Praise for the cosy crime Flavia de Luce Mysteries - perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and Midsomer Murders:
The Flavia de Luce novels are now a cult favourite

(Mail on Sunday)

Certain to become a national treasure (Daily Mail)

Delightfully entertaining (Guardian)

Flavia is enchanting (New York Times)

A breath of fresh air to the world of period-piece sleuthing (Independent)

Flavia is mercilessly addictive (Daily Telegraph)

A clever, witty and totally gripping read with lots of surprises (Essentials)

At once precocious and endearing, Flavia is a marvellous character. Quirkily appealing, this is definitely a crime novel with a difference (Choice)

It's like entering the lost world of the Mitford sisters where the girls are allowed to run completely wild (Crime Squad)

Hilarious, eccentric and mischievous (Deadly Pleasures)

Book Description:

Take one precocious eleven-year-old girl called Flavia. Add an ancient country house somewhere in England in 1950. Then sprinkle with murder, mystery and dark family secrets...

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