From the Publisher
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.
From the Jacket
"While Flavia De Luce is winning your heart, she may also be
poisoning your tea. She's the most wickedly funny sleuth in years,
brilliant, unpredictable, unflappable-and only eleven. The
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie offers the freshest new
voice in mystery yet."-Charles Todd, author of The Ian Rutledge
series
"A wickedly clever story, a dead true and original voice, and an
English country house in the summer: Alexander McCall Smith meets
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Please, please, Mr. Bradley, tell me we'll
be seeing Flavia again soon?"-Laurie R. King, author of the Mary
Russell series
"Alan Bradley's marvelous book, The Sweetness at the
Bottom of the Pie, is a fantastic read, a winner.
Flavia walks right off the page and follows me through my day. I
can hardly wait for the next book. Bravo!" -Louise Penny,
author of Still Life
"The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie offers the
reader the precious gift of a richly imagined and luscious new
world-but uniquely so, for this is the world of Flavia Sabina de
Luce: an eleven-year-old, utterly winning, and altogether
delightfully nasty piece of work. An outright pleasure from
beginning to end."-Gordon Dahlquist¸ author of The Glass
Books of the Dream Eaters
"Alan Bradley brews a bubbly beaker of fun in his devilishly
clever, wickedly amusing debut mystery, launching an
eleven-year-old heroine with a passion for chemistry-and revenge!
What a delightful, original book!"-Carolyn Hart, author of the
Death on Demand series
"Utterly charming! Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce proves to be one
of the most precocious, resourceful, and well, just plain
dangerous, heroines around. Evildoers-and big sisters-beware!"-Lisa
Gardner, author of Say Goodbye
"Flavia is an engagingly smart new sleuth with a flair for bringing
out the child-and the detective-in all of us."-Christopher Fowler,
author of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series
"Sure in its story, pace and voice, The Sweetness at the
Bottom of the Pie deliciously mixes all the ingredients of
great storytelling. The kind of novel you can pass on to any reader
knowing their pleasure it assured."-Andrew Pyper, author of the
The Killing Circle
"Told through the observations of science-experimenting snoop
of an 11-year-old girl, this jolly-good-fun murder mystery is as
indulgent as a Bunty annual. Flavia de Luce, daughter to a
philatelist colonel father and late mother, who dies when she was a
baby, finds a body in the cucumber patch. In the twists and turns
that ensue, centering around the nesting habits of the snipe and
the last word of the dead man, she proves herself as indomitable a
sleuth as you would expect a girl who says "Oh, piffle" to
be.-Good Housekeeping, UK
"In June 1950's, very-nearly-eleven year old Flavia de Luce, rising
above the torments of her two older sisters and plotting revenge in
her Victorian chemistry lab, is intrigued by the mystery of snipe
with a rare stamp in its beak, found on the doorstep of the
crumbling de Luce country seat. And she is astonished by the effect
the dead bird has on her stamp-obsessed father, the Colonel. When
something much worse is found in the cucumber patch and family
secrets begin to unravel, Flavia has to use all her deductive
powers to solve a mystery and a crime. At once precocious and
endearing, Flavia is a marvelous character. Quirkily appealing,
this is definitely a crime novel with a difference." -Choice
Magazine, "Book of the Month."
"Brilliant, irresistible and incorrigible, Flavia has a long future
ahead of her…Bradley's mystery debut is a standout. "-Kirkus
Reviews, starred review
"Fun for the reader…. Fans of Louise Fitzhugh's iconic Harriet the
Spy will welcome 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce, the heroine of
… Bradley's rollicking debut."-Publishers Weekly
"A delightful whodunit.…hilarious, eccentric and
mischievous."-Tangled Web, UK
"An absolute treat. It is original, clever, entertaining and
funny….an extraordinary maze of mystery and intrigue…driving the
reader to turn those pages in glorious anticipation….a terrific
book, so different to anything."-Material Witness
"Oh how astonishing and pleasing is genuine originality!....I
simply cannot recall the last time I so enjoyed being the company
of a first-person narrator….Bradley has a simply astonishing gift
for putting simile and analogy in Flavia's mouth…the plot is a
splendid piece of hokum with some pleasing deduction and an
excellent historical back-story….This is a book which triumphantly
succeeds in its objectives of charming and delighting. And on top
of that it is genuinely original….we may well be talking in a few
years about one of the great voices and great series of mystery
fiction. I resort to - and it is very, very rarely that I use this
- that old cliché, a must-read." -Reviewing the
Evidence
"A wonderfully written, engaging novel….It's rare that a book of
which I feel quite passionately enraptured crosses my desk, and
this is one of those special books that fully deserves five stars.
The plot is well-paced, the dialogue is thoughtful and succinct,
and being inside the head of Flavia de Luce is delightful. Her wry,
dry humour and resigned frustration with the adult world are
seriously entertaining….I loved her to bits." -Oh Baby
Magazine, NZ
"Delightfully entertaining." -The Guardian, UK
"The first page…is so delicious, that I actually had to stop in the
middle of The Girl Who Played with Fire to read the rest
of it. Flavia deserves the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Alan
Bradley the Edgar Award. Does anyone collect stamps anymore?" -Paul
Ingram
"If there ever was a heroine set for stardom it would be Flavia de
Luce….Think Agatha Christie crossed with the Mitfords and laced
with mischievous humour." -Sunday Herald, Australia
"If you condensed Sherlock Holmes's deductive abilities, Madame
Curie's talent for chemistry, and Dr. Jekyll's zeal into the mind
of an 11-year-old, her name would be Flavia de Luce….full of
mystery, charm, and chemistry. Its quick-witted dialogue,
tongue-in-cheek humour and colourful characters will linger long
after the book is back on the shelf."-Discovery Channel,
in print
"She's a fictional 11-year-old girl detective living in England in
1950. He's a very real 70-year-old retired television engineer
living today in Kelowna, B.C. Together they are soaring to great
heights in the international literary world."-Ottawa
Citizen
"Bradley adroitly brews a biting yet empathetic read that's
anchored in the English countryside and public schools, and haunted
by secrets. His fresh and innovative Flavia de Luce…is a new voice
that's brilliant and fierce, funny and vulnerable….I couldn't read
the book fast enough…Another serving, please!" -Marie Ary, Seattle
Mystery Bookshop; Seattle, Washington
"Amazingly entertaining…The Sweetness at the Bottom of
the Pie introduces a charming and engaging
sleuth."-Booklist, starred review
"A fresh, engaging first novel."-Library Journal
Praise from the Debut Dagger Award Judges of the UK Crime
Writers' Association:
"Really adored the voice of the characters in this- especially
Flavia, the spirited main protagonist- and the sense of place is
beautifully described, particularly when telling the history of the
house and its inhabitants. The family unit, comprising of the
taciturn, introspective Colonel and his three daughters is well
written, humorous and the sibling relationships very realistic. The
author should be praised for creating a work that has nostalgic
interest as well as a murder mystery, in places this almost reads
like an Enid Blyton novel for adults!"
"I adored this! Our heroine is refreshingly youthful, funny and
sharp and the author creates such a strong sense of time and place.
Flavia's eccentric family are delightful and I love seeing them
interact within their crazy home. There are also interesting depths
to the plot - the stamp collecting, the chemistry experiments, and
the acknowledgement of past events and how they have affected these
characters. The author's tone is very tongue-in-cheek and offers
something quite different in this genre, and the story is cleverly
structured and beautifully written. This doesn't read like a first
novel. Assuming the mystery itself will be as enticing and smoothly
handled as the opening, I can see Flavia solving crimes into
adulthood. Great title too!"
"The most original of the bunch, I think, with a deliciously
deceptive opening which really sets the tone of macabre fun. Flavia
is a wonderful creation, along with the rest of her eccentric
family, and makes for a highly engaging sleuth. Think the Mitfords,
as imagined by Dorothy L Sayers. The plot, with its intriguing
philatelic elements, is nicely ingenious and delivers a very good
end, with a fun twist. Would make very good Sunday night telly, I
think."
From the Hardcover edition.