My Rating: 4/5
Review: This was a lovely mystery involving the most intriguing little girl I have ever come across in a book. Flavia de Luce loves chemistry, and she is most particularly enamored with poisons. When a stranger dies before her eyes outside her home, she is immediately thrust into a complex murder mystery. When her father is arrested for the crime, it makes her investigations all the more important. I love her wit, her love for her trusty bicycle, Gladys, and her determination. Not to mention her bravery. It takes quite a bit of gumption to go through what she does to solve the murder and free her dad from jail. I am looking forward ti reading the next book in this series.
Book Description: 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.
