The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

One

I am on my deathbed.

Again.

Although I have done everything in my power to survive, it has not been enough. A human being can only bear so much.

I turn my face to the wall in bitter remembrance.

Father had died suddenly at Christmas, leaving a colossal vacuum which we quickly realized would never ­could never ­be filled. In some strange way, he had been the secret glue which held us all together, and with his passing my sisters and I, never friends at the best of times, had now ­and quite inexplicably ­become the most deadly of mortal enemies. Each of us, wanting desperately to be in charge ­to gain some control over her shattered life ­found herself at odds with the others at every turn. Words and crockery were thrown with equal carelessness. It didn t seem to matter much who was hit.

With our family on the verge of breaking up, Aunt Felicity had come down from London to sort us out.

Or so she claimed.

In case we had forgotten it, we were quickly reminded of the fact that our dear auntie was ­as the Book of Common Prayer so charitably puts it ­a woman who followed the devices and desires of her own heart.

In short, she was at best a stubborn old woman and at worst a bully and a tyrant.

Buckshaw was to be sold at once, Aunt Felicity insisted, even though in law it was mine to do with as I pleased. Feely was to be married off to her fiancé, Dieter Schrantz, with all haste ­or at least as quickly as possible ­as soon as a respectable period of mourning had been observed.

Daffy would be sent up to Oxford to read English.

Who knows but that, given time, you might even become a gifted teacher, Aunt Felicity had said, upon which Daffy had thrown her teacup and saucer into the fireplace and stormed out of the room.

Tantrums were useless, Aunt Felicity had told us icily. Tantrums solve no problems, but only create new ones.

As for me, I was to be taken up to London, along with my cousin Undine, to live with Aunt Felicity until

Alan Bradley is the New York Times bestselling author of many short stories, children's stories, newspaper columns, and the memoir The Shoebox Bible. His first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, received the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award, the Dilys Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Agatha Award, the Macavity Award, and the Barry Award, and was nominated for the Anthony Award. His other Flavia de Luce novels are The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, A Red Herring Without Mustard, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Speaking from Among the Bones, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd, and The Grave's a Fine and Private Place, as well as the ebook short story "The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse."

Flavia [is] irrepressible, precocious and indefatigable. . . . A whole new chapter of Flavia s life opens as she approaches adolescence. Will she become the Madame Curie of crime? Bookreporter

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

Acclaim for Alan Bradley s beloved Flavia de Luce novels, winners of the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award, Barry Award, Agatha Award, Macavity Award, Dilys Award, and Arthur Ellis Award
 
If ever there were a sleuth who s bold, brilliant, and, yes, adorable, it s Flavia de Luce. USA Today
 
Delightful . . . a combination of Eloise and Sherlock Holmes. The Boston Globe
 
[Flavia] is as addictive as dark chocolate. Daily Mail
 
The plucky adolescent is terrifically entertaining the world s foremost braniac/chemist/sleuth/busybody/smarty-pants. Nobody can touch her in that category. The Seattle Times