Sweetness at the bottom of the Pie

I have to gush my praises over "The Sweetness at the bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley. It just looks like a fun little book and it was. The main character is 11 year old Flavia de Luce and she's just full of spit fire. She and her two older sisters and widowed father live in a small English village in the 1950's where everyone knows everyone else. She has taught herself chemistry from her deceased mother's chemistry books and laboratory. She is very smart, yet still has the emotions and social skills of an 11 year old. She finds a man dying in their garden and decides to solve the crime herself. Alan Bradley won the Debut Dagger award in 2007 for this book. He is 70- something years old and this is his second book. He also wrote a memoir entitled "The shoebox bible" in 2004. For anyone thinking they are too old to write a book - take heart, you could still write an award winner. "The Sweetness at the bottom of the Pie" is the first in a series Mr. Bradley will be writing. He has already finished the second book "The weed that strings the hangman's bag", which comes out in March of 2010, and is currently working on a third. Flavia has her own website at http://www.flaviadeluce.com/