The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley | 384 pgs, published 2009

Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce likes spending time in the laboratory and experimenting with poisons. It adds some interest to her otherwise boring life. Fortunately, early one morning she finds a man lying in the garden outside her window, and once he dies, she has plenty to do: solve his murder.

Think chemistry + stamp collecting + Harriet the Spy + English countryside in the 1950s. If this sounds good, please read the book! I seldom go for mysteries, but this was immensely fun to read. Very enjoyable. There are, apparently, other Flavia de Luce books, but this is a perfectly good stand-alone book.

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