The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger

Introducing Flavia de Luce, a new breed of detective heroine: she’s a pigtailed eleven-year-old with a penchant for poison, and things get interesting the day she finds a dead body in the cucumber patch. . . .

Great literary crime detectives aren’t always born; they’re sometimes discovered, blindfolded, and tied up in a dark closet by their nasty older sisters. Flavia’s bitter home life and vicious sibling rivalry inspire her solitary diversions and "strange talents" - whether it’s concocting poisons in the laboratory of their inherited Victorian house, plotting vengeance on Ophelia (17) and Daphne (13), or delving into the forbidden past of her taciturn, widowed father, Colonel de Luce. It comes as no surprise, then, that the material for her next scientific investigation will be that mysterious corpse.

Fearless and darkly imaginative, Flavia hurries to solve the murder and free her father of suspicion. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is entirely inventive, fast-paced, and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject.

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Also available as a hardcover.