The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

EARLY ACCLAIM FOR

ALAN BRADLEY'S DEBUT MYSTERY

'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

'While Flavia de Luce is winning your heart, she may also be poisoning your tea. She's the most wickedly funny sleuth in years, brilliant, unpredictable, unflappable—and only eleven. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie offers the freshest new voice in mystery yet.”

—Charles Todd, author of the Ian Rutledge series

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)

one

IT WAS AS BLACK IN THE CLOSET AS OLD BLOOD. THEY had shoved me in and locked the door. I breathed heavily through my nose, fighting desperately to remain calm. I tried counting to ten on every intake of breath, and to eight as I released each one slowly into the darkness. Luckily for me, they had pulled the gag so tightly into my open mouth that my nostrils were left unobstructed, and I was able to draw in one slow lungful after another of the stale, musty air.

I tried hooking my fingernails under the silk scarf that bound my hands behind me, but since I always bit them to the quick, there was nothing to catch. Jolly good luck then that I'd remembered to put my fingertips together, using them as ten firm little bases to press my palms apart as they had pulled the knots tight.

Now I rotated my wrists, squeezing them together until I felt a bit of slack, using my thumbs to work the silk down until the knots were between my palms—then between my fingers. If they had been bright enough to think of tying my thumbs together, I should never have escaped. What utter morons they were.

With my hands free at last, I made short work of the gag.

Now for the door. But first, to be sure they were not lying in wait for me, I squatted and peered out through the keyhole at the attic. Thank heavens they had taken the key away with them. There was no one in sight; save for its perpetual tangle of shadows, junk, and sad bric-a-brac, the long attic was empty. The coast was clear.

Reaching above my head at the back of the closet, I unscrewed one of the wire coat hooks from its mounting board. By sticking its curved wing into the keyhole and levering the other end, I was able to form an L-shaped hook which I poked into the depths of the ancient lock. A bit of judicious fishing and fiddling yielded a gratifying click. It was almost too easy. The door swung open and I was free.

I SKIPPED DOWN THE BROAD stone staircase into the hall, pausing at the door of the dining room just long enough to toss my pigtails back over my shoulders and into their regulation position.

Father still insisted on dinner being served as the clock struck the hour and eaten at the massive oak refectory table, just as it had been when Mother was alive.

'Ophelia and Daphne not down yet, Flavia?' he asked peevishly, looking up from the latest issue of The British Philatelist, which lay open beside his meat and potatoes.

'I haven't seen them in ages,' I said.

It was true. I hadn't seen them—not since they had gagged and blindfolded me, then lugged me hog-tied up the attic stairs and locked me in the closet.

Father glared at me over his spectacles for the statutory four seconds before he went back to mumbling over his sticky treasures.