Alan Bradley

Young chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce once again uses her knowledge of poisons and her indefatigable spirit to solve a crime, but this time she leaves behind the English countryside and enters the unexpectedly unsavory world of Canadian boarding schools. By the best-selling author of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

A Flavia de Luce Novel

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

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.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Flavia de Luce is one of crime fiction's most engaging and original sleuths. Growing up in a crumbling mansion with two elder sisters (who are both, in their own way, horrible to her), a father who seems perennially lost in contemplation of the past and haunted by fleeting memories of her mother, who died mysteriously in the Himalayas when Flavia was a baby, her refuge has always been an obsession with chemistry; an interest that has proved very useful whenever unexplained death has come to the otherwise sleepy village of Bishop's Lacey, which is surprisingly often. But the latest mystery to puzzle Bishop's Lacey's eccentric inhabitants is perhaps the strangest and darkest yet, and it will test Flavia's budding investigative skills to the limit - not to mention put her in terrible danger . . .

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

A special eBook original short story, in which the eleven-year-old connoisseur of chemistry is immersed in her element: solving a mystery! Murder! the letter says, Come at once. Anson House, Greyminster, Staircase No. 3. How can Flavia de Luce resist such an urgent plea? After all, examining a dead body sounds like a perfectly splendid way to spend a Sunday. So Flavia hops upon her trusted bicycle, Gladys, whose rubber tires hiss happily along the rainy road, and arrives at her father's mist-shrouded old school. There, a terrified boy leads her to the loo where, sitting in a bathtub, is what appears to be a statue. But, no: To Flavia's surprise, the thing is in fact a naked dead man. Save his face, he seems to have been carved out of copper. Never one to shy away from the macabre, Flavia gets to work-only to find that when an investigation begins with a metallic cadaver, ever more curious twists are to be expected.

The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse

In the deep midwinter, there's a murder to solve... Christmas is coming and the snow is falling, but with the de Luce family finances in a parlous state, Colonel de Luce has been forced to rent out the family home to a film company. For Flavia and her sisters it's as if all their belated Christmases have come at once - but filming is soon slowed by a series of nasty accidents and then brought to a halt as a heavy snowstorm cuts Buckshaw off from the outside world. As they prepare to wait out the weather, they are stunned by a gruesomely dramatic murder - and suddenly Flavia, in the midst of designing an experiment to prove the existence of Father Christmas - has another, far deadlier mystery to solve. Praise for the historical Flavia de Luce mysteries: 'The Flavia de Luce novels are now a cult favourite' Mail on Sunday 'A cross between Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle and the Addams family...delightfully entertaining' Guardian Fans of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin, Frances Brody and Alexander McCall Smith will enjoy the Flavia de Luce mysteries: 1. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie 2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag 3. A Red Herring Without Mustard 4. I Am Half Sick of Shadows 5. Speaking From Among the Bones 6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches 7. As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust 8. Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd 9. The Grave's a Fine and Private Place If you're looking for a cosy crime series to keep you hooked then look no further than the Flavia de Luce mysteries. * Each Flavia de Luce mystery can be read as a standalone or in series order *

A Flavia de Luce Mystery Book 4

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A finger in a wedding cake is only the beginning in this deliciously shocking mystery featuring Flavia de Luce, “the world’s greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth” (The Seattle Times). Although it is autumn in the small English town of Bishop’s Lacey, the chapel is decked with exotic flowers. Yes, Flavia de Luce’s sister Ophelia is at last getting hitched, like a mule to a wagon. “A church is a wonderful place for a wedding,” muses Flavia, “surrounded as it is by the legions of the dead, whose listening bones bear silent witness to every promise made at the altar.” Flavia is not your normal twelve-year-old girl. An expert in the chemical nature of poisons, she has solved many mysteries, sharpening her considerable detection skills to the point where she had little choice but to turn professional. So Flavia and dependable Dogger, estate gardener and sounding board extraordinaire, set up shop at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, eager to serve—not so simple an endeavor with her odious little moon-faced cousin, Undine, constantly underfoot. But Flavia and Dogger persevere. Little does she know that their first case will be extremely close to home, beginning with an unwelcome discovery in Ophelia’s wedding cake: a human finger. Praise for The Golden Tresses of the Dead “Delightful . . . The mysteries in Mr. Bradley’s books are engaging, but the real lure is Ms. de Luce, the irreverent youngster.”—The Wall Street Journal “A ghoulish question is at the heart of Bradley’s excellent tenth Flavia de Luce novel. . . . Bradley, who has few peers at combining fair-play clueing with humor and has fun mocking genre conventions, shows no sign of running out of ideas.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The Golden Tresses of the Dead

Young chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce uses her knowledge of poisons and her indefatigable spirit to solve a dastardly crime in the English countryside while learning new clues about her mother's disappearance.

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Flavia is incisive, cutting and hilarious . . . one of the most remarkable creations in recent literature.”—USA Today Flavia de Luce, a dangerously smart eleven-year-old with a passion for chemistry and a genius for solving murders, thinks that her days of crime-solving in the bucolic English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey are over—until beloved puppeteer Rupert Porson has his own strings sizzled in an unfortunate rendezvous with electricity. But who’d do such a thing, and why? Does the madwoman who lives in Gibbet Wood know more than she’s letting on? What about Porson’s charming but erratic assistant? All clues point toward a suspicious death years earlier and a case the local constables can’t solve—without Flavia’s help. But in getting so close to who’s secretly pulling the strings of this dance of death, has our precocious heroine finally gotten in way over her head? BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Bradley's A Red Herring Without Mustard, discussion questions, and an essay by the author.

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

When the tomb of St. Tancred is opened at a village church in Bishop's Lacey, its shocking contents lead to another case for Flavia de Luce, where greed, pride and murder result in old secrets coming to light, along with a forgotten flower that hasn't been seen for half a thousand years.

Speaking from Among the Bones

Die junge Flavia de Luce staut nicht schlecht, als sie im ersten Morgenlicht eine Leiche im Garten entdeckt - ausgerechnet im Gurkenbeet! Jeder hält ihren Vater für den Mörder, denn Colonel de Luce hat sich noch tags zuvor mit dem Verblichenenen gestritten. Nur ein einziger Mensch glaubt felsenfest an die Unschuld des Colonels - seine naseweise Tochter Flavia.

Roman

Mord im Gurkenbeet

When a Gypsy woman is wrongly accused of kidnapping a local child, precocious young Flavia de Luce draws on her encyclopedic knowledge of poisons and Gypsy lore to discern what really happened while investigating the mystery of her own mother's fate.

A Red Herring Without Mustard

Gerald Jung

Katharina Orgaß

Flavia de Luce - Mord ist kein Kinderspiel

Flavia de Luce 03. Halunken, Tod und Teufel

Mord ist ihr größtes Vergnügen Eigentlich wollte Flavia nur ein paar vergnügte Stunden auf dem Jahrmarkt verbringen, wo sie jedoch aus Versehen das Zelt der Wahrsagerin Fenella abfackelt. Getrieben vom schlechten Gewissen lädt sie Fenella ein, auf dem Anwesen der Familie de Luce zu campieren. Doch dann wird ihre neue Freundin bezichtigt, vor Jahren ein Baby entführt und so eine Familie zerstört zu haben. Und schon bald findet Flavia die Wahrsagerin von einem schweren Schlag auf den Kopf niedergestreckt - wie tot - in ihrem Wohnwagen vor. Flavia macht sich schreckliche Vorwürfe. Wenn sie nicht gewesen wäre, wäre das alles nicht passiert. Aber da macht sie eine Entdeckung, die sie all das erst mal vergessen lässt: Am Poseidonbrunnen des Anwesens hängt eine Leiche! Flavia ist sofort Feuer und Flamme. Ein Mord ist aufzuklären, und bestimmt benötigt die Polizei dabei ihre Unterstützung ...

Flavia de Luce - Halunken, Tod und Teufel

Winner of the 2007 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger A delightfully dark English mystery, featuring precocious young sleuth Flavia de Luce and her eccentric family. The summer of 1950 hasn’t offered up anything out of the ordinary for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce: bicycle explorations around the village, keeping tabs on her neighbours, relentless battles with her older sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, and brewing up poisonous concoctions while plotting revenge in their home’s abandoned Victorian chemistry lab, which Flavia has claimed for her own. But then a series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer 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.” Did the stranger die of poisoning? There was a piece missing from Mrs. Mullet’s custard pie, and none of the de Luces would have dared to eat the awful thing. Or could he have been killed by the family’s loyal handyman, Dogger… or by the Colonel himself! At that moment, Flavia commits herself to solving the crime — even if it means keeping information from the village police, in order to protect her family. But then her father confesses to the crime, for the same reason, and it’s up to Flavia to free him of suspicion. Only she has the ingenuity to follow the clues that reveal the victim’s identity, and a conspiracy that reaches back into the de Luces’ murky past. A thoroughly entertaining romp of a novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is inventive and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that transcends the macabre seriousness of its subject. From the Hardcover edition.

Flavia de Luce 8 - Mord ist nicht das letzte Wort

Ach du heilige Pfeife - Flavia zieht alle Register! Sie steckt ihre Nase überall hinein und befördert jeden noch so tief vergrabenen Hinweis ans Licht - die elfjährige Flavia de Luce ist Hobbydetektivin aus Leidenschaft. Als sie ihre Nase zur Abwechslung in eine alte Kirchengruft steckt, rechnet sie allerdings nicht damit, eine verhältnismässig frische Leiche ans Licht zu befördern. Aus dem Grab des Kirchenheiligen von Bishop's Lacey blickt ihr der ermordete Kirchenorganist hinter einer grotesken Gasmaske entgegen. Wer hatte einen Grund, Mr. Collicutt zu töten, und wieso hat er die Leiche hier, an diesem heiligen Ort, versteckt? Ein neuer Fall für die brillante Flavia! Alan Bradley wurde 1938 geboren und ist in Cobourg in der kanadischen Provinz Ontario aufgewachsen. Nach einer Karriere als Elektrotechniker, die schliesslich in der Position des Direktors für Fernsehtechnik am Zentrum für Neue Medien der Universität von Saskatchewan in Saskatoon gipfelte, hat Alan Bradley sich 1994 aus dem aktiven Berufsleben zurückgezogen, um sich nur noch dem Schreiben zu widmen. "Mord im Gurkenbeet" ist sein erster Roman und der in England, USA und Kanada bereits viel umjubelte Auftakt zur Serie um die aussergewöhnliche Detektivin Flavia de Luce. Alan Bradley lebt zusammen mit seiner Frau auf Malta.

Flavia de Luce 5 - Schlussakkord für einen Mord

Zatrute ciasteczko

Eine liebenswerte Giftmischerin Der Debütroman von Alan Bradley sorgte bereits vor Erscheinen für eine beispiellose Sensation: Er wurde mit dem renommiertesten Krimipreis der Welt ausgezeichnet, dem "Dagger Award"--Auf der Basis eines einzigen Kapitels! Die junge Flavia de Luce staunt nicht schlecht, als sie im ersten Morgenlicht eine Leiche im Garten entdeckt - ausgerechnet im Gurkenbeet! Jeder hält ihren Vater für den Mörder, denn Colonel de Luce hat sich noch tags zuvor mit dem Verblichenen gestritten. Nur ein einziger Mensch glaubt felsenfest an die Unschuld des Colonels- seine neunmalkluge Tochter Flavia. Schliesslich ist der Ermordete vergiftet worden, und- ganz im Gegensatz zu Flavia, die eine begnadete Giftmischerin ist - ihr Vater hat nie Interesse an der Chemie des Todes gezeigt. Also fragt Flavia in vermeintlich kindlicher Unschuld sämtlichen Zeugen Löcher in den Bauch. Hartnäckig folgt sie jeder noch so abwegigen Spur- bis sie einsehen muss, dass ihr Vater tatsächlich ein dunkles Geheimnis hütet. Und so befürchtet Flavia, dass sie vielleicht eine zu gute Detektivin ist. Gewitzt, ironisch und unwiderstehlich liebenswert- Flavia de Luce ist eine Ermittlerin, wie sie die Welt noch nicht gesehen hat!

Alan Bradley

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