Alan Bradley

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

For Shirley

UNLESS SOME SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM LIE,

WHO CARES FOR ALL THE CRINKLING OF THE PIE?

William King, The Art of Cookery (1708)

EARLY ACCLAIM FOR

ALAN BRADLEY'S DEBUT MYSTERY

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

WINNER OF THE

CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION'S

DEBUT DAGGER AWARD

"A wickedly clever story, a dead-true and original voice, and an English country house in the summer: Alexander McCall Smith meets Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Please, please, Mr. Bradley, tell me we'll be seeing Flavia again soon?"

—Laurie R. King, Edgar, Macavity, and Nero award-winning author of the Mary Russell series

"Alan Bradley's marvelous book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, is a fantastic read, a winner. Flavia walks right off the page and follows me through my day. I can hardly wait for the next book. Bravo!”

—Louise Penny, Agatha, Anthony, and Dagger award-winning author of Still Life

"The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

offers the reader the precious gift of a richly imagined and luscious new world—but uniquely so, for this is the world of Flavia Sabina de Luce: an eleven-year-old, utterly winning, and altogether delightfully nasty piece of work. An outright pleasure from beginning to end.”

—Gordon Dahlquist, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

"Alan Bradley brews a bubbly beaker of fun in his devilishly clever, wickedly amusing debut mystery, launching an eleven-year-old heroine with a passion for chemistry—and revenge! What a delightful, original book!"

—Carolyn Hart, Agatha Award-winning author of the Death on Demand series

"Utterly charming! Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce proves to be one of the most precocious, resourceful, and well, just plain dangerous, heroines around. Evildoers—and big sisters—beware!"

—Lisa Gardner

, New York Times bestselling author of Say Goodbye

"Flavia is an engagingly smart new sleuth with a flair for bringing out the child—and the detective—in all of us."

—Christopher Fowler, author of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series

"Sure in its story, pace, and voice, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie deliciously mixes all the ingredients of great storytelling. The kind of novel you can pass on to any reader knowing their pleasure is assured.”

—Andrew Pyper, author of the Ellis Award-winning book The Killing Circle