The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery [B0004]

2010 PB. 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-Times. It 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 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.

From Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "I love Flavia. She is brilliant, tenacious, and fun."; "Once I settled into the story I was hooked, & all the characters grew on me. The characterizations are exaggerated in a humorous way, a la Dickens, & I eventually figured out Flavia's seeming meanness is really just adolescent emotional upheaval played up for humor."; "It took some time to really get into the mystery, but for the last 100 pages, I was completely hooked. I couldn't put it down. And now that we are so well acquainted with our protagonist, I believe the next few reads in the series are sure to be gripping."