WINNER OF THE AGATHA • ARTHUR ELLIS • DILYS • DEBUT DAGGER AWARDS “Wonderfully entertaining . . . sure to be one of the most loved mysteries of the year . . . [Flavia is] a delightful, intrepid, acid-tongued new heroine.”—Chicago Sun-TimesIt is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a … for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, 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.”
BONUS: This edition contains a The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie discussion guide and an excerpt from Alan Bradley’s The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.
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Quirky series!
A great read and great characters.
Loved it.
The protagonist is compelling, smart, funny, and always intriguing. Narrative, setting, characters all come together to create a fabulous story.
Love the whole series!
This is just a perfect read. Having spent my career working with kids, Mr. Bradley gets Flavia exactly right. She’s a delight, the minx. I highly recommend the Audible version. The narrator captures our young heroine’s thoughts with all the delicious deviousness she deserves.
These quirky mystery books are wonderful because of the eccentric charactersI read one and then had to go back and read the entire series and now I eagerly look forward to the next one!!
As perplexing as an 11 year old genius can be, I very definitely enjoyed Flavia, and the British atmosphere of the novel. In reading cozy mysteries and watching many BBC productions, suspending the boring ‘real-life’ for a bit of fantasy was not a stretch for me. The audio version of this book was just fabulous— can’t wait to read more.
Flavia is a miniature Ms. Sherlock. I found it so interesting to see how her eleven-year-old mind works in solving this murder mystery. I highly recommend it and look forward to reading more of her adventures.
I LOVE Flavia de Luce! She is my hero.
Great book! Fun read for chemistry students!
Great fun with precocious sleuth!
I love Flavia DeLuce. She’s a wonderful, feisty, fantastic character.
These are marvelous books with great characters.
More for young adults but I do enjoy this series.
I enjoyed the book but felt the main character was a brat.the girl was a brat,but it was a fun read.
I LOVE all of the Flavia de Luce books! I own the entire set in hardback because they are absolutely marvelous! Recommend to everyone
This whole series of books area wonderful. Very clever.
Enjoyable writing. Interesting storyline. Good set characters. Fun to read.
I loved the cunning personality of Flavia! I’m already on thr 5th book! The way the story goes is so unpredictable! Fascinating! 10/10 would read again!