The Grave's a Fine and Private Place: A Flavia de Luce Novel - Tapa dura

National Bestseller
A New York Times Bestseller

"This is another top-notch installment in a mystery series that manages to be both funny and creepy. More, please." --People

"Outstanding. . . . As usual, Bradley makes his improbable series conceit work and relieves the plot's inherent darkness with clever humor." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"There's only one Flavia. . . . Series fans will anticipate the details of this investigation, along with one last taste of Flavia's unorthodox family life." --Library Journal, starred review

"Fans of the precocious sleuth who share her unapologetically enthusiastic sense that 'an unexamined corpse was a tale untold' will rub their hands gleefully, confident that her resolution will unleash a dazzling barrage of innocent-seeming questions, recherché chemical and pharmacological tidbits, fibs and whoppers, and the most coyly bratty behavior outside the pages of Kay Thompson's chronicles of Eloise. . . . Bradley's unquenchable heroine brings 'the most complicated case I had ever come across' to a highly satisfying conclusion, with the promise of still brighter days ahead." --Kirkus Reviews

Praise for the Flavia de Luce series:
- "[Bradley] has created one of the most endearing protagonists the traditional mystery genre, typified by the works of Agatha Christie, has seen in a very long time. . . . Bradley secures his position as a confident, talented writer and storyteller." --The Globe and Mail
- "Flavia de Luce [is] perhaps contemporary crime fiction's most original character." --Maclean's
- "There is such a thing as willing suspension of disbelief brought on by sheer outlandish charm, and that's what [Alan] Bradley and some delicious writing have tapped." --London Free Press
- "Flavia de Luce [is] one of the most original and charming sleuths to appear in recent memory." --Quill & Quire
- "Flavia, on the page, remains one of the most original and endearing characters around." --Calgary Herald
- "Utterly beguiling." --People
- "Flavia walks right off the page and follows me through my day. I can hardly wait for the next book. Bravo." --Louise Penny, acclaimed author of Still Life

"The world's greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth" (The Seattle Times), Flavia de Luce, returns in a twisty new mystery novel from award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Alan Bradley.

In the wake of an unthinkable family tragedy, twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce is struggling to fill her empty days. For a needed escape, Dogger, the loyal family servant, suggests a boating trip for Flavia and her two older sisters. As their punt drifts past the church where a notorious vicar had recently dispatched three of his female parishioners by spiking their communion wine with cyanide, Flavia, an expert chemist with a passion for poisons, is ecstatic. Suddenly something grazes against her fingers as she dangles them in the water. She clamps down on the object, imagining herself as Ernest Hemingway battling a marlin, and pulls up what she expects will be a giant fish. But in Flavia's grip is something far better: a human head, attached to a human body. If anything could take Flavia's mind off sorrow, it is solving a murder--although one that may lead the young sleuth to an early grave.