The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Alan Bradley, C. Alan Bradley. Delacorte, $23 (384pp) ISBN 978-0-385-34230-8
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.
Reviewed on: 02/23/2009
Genre: Fiction
Analog Audio Cassette - 978-1-84652-603-9
Compact Disc - 8 pages - 978-0-7393-8430-5
Compact Disc - 978-1-84652-604-6
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4159-6449-1
Hardcover - 503 pages - 978-1-4104-1917-0
Hardcover - 304 pages - 978-0-385-66582-7
MP3 CD - 978-1-84652-746-3
Other - 978-0-307-37325-0
Paperback - 310 pages - 978-986-6858-94-9
