Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a nice mystery featuring 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, a self-taught chemist.The story takes place in 1950's England at the de Luce family home, Buckshaw. The mystery starts when a dead bird is found on the back doorstep of Buckshaw. The odd thing about the bird is the postage stamp that it holds on its beak, something which, Flavia notices, troubles her father - a man not easily bothered.
When early one morning Flavia finds a dead man in the cucumbers, she sets out, armed with her knowledge of chemistry (rather unbelievable considering she is 11 - almost), to solve the mystery and to save her father who has been arrested for the crime.
Bradley won the Crime Writers' Association's Dagger Award for his debut novel in 2007 and Flavia is a fun character to solve the mystery with if you can get past all the chem-speak - from an 11-year-old genius (in chemistry anyway).
Elizabeth
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