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Title details for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley - Available

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

#1 in series

by Alan Bradley
Jayne Entwistle
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
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.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Flavia de Luce Mystery

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    April 28, 2009

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415964491
      • File size: 285035 KB
      • Duration: 09:53:49

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 960
    • Text Difficulty: 5-6

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Jayne Entwistle exuberantly portrays 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, the precocious daughter of an English widower in the 1950s. Entwistle depicts Flavia's willingness to plunge into the mystery that develops when a curious dead bird, a threatening stranger, and a dead body lead to her father's arrest for murder. Flavia says it's "the most interesting thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life." As Entwistle's involving narration lets listeners' ears linger on the details of time and place, her secondary characters effectively convey class. Sparring with her older sisters, quoting literary sources, and exhibiting equal parts scientific and historical curiosity, Flavia makes for an adventuresome young crimesolver. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 23, 2009
      Fans of Louise Fitzhugh's iconic Harriet the Spy will welcome 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce, the heroine of Canadian journalist Bradley's rollicking debut. In an early 1950s English village, Flavia is preoccupied with retaliating against her lofty older sisters when a rude, redheaded stranger arrives to confront her eccentric father, a philatelic devotee. Equally adept at quoting 18th-century works, listening at keyholes and picking locks, Flavia learns that her father, Colonel de Luce, may be involved in the suicide of his long-ago schoolmaster and the theft of a priceless stamp. The sudden expiration of the stranger in a cucumber bed, wacky village characters with ties to the schoolmaster, and a sharp inspector with doubts about the colonel and his enterprising young detective daughter mean complications for Flavia and enormous fun for the reader. Tantalizing hints about a gardener with a shady past and the mysterious death of Flavia's adventurous mother promise further intrigues ahead.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:960
  • Text Difficulty:5-6

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