Sweetness at the bottom of the pie

Alan Bradley's debut novel introduces the delightful and rather wicked 11 year old Flavia de Luce. In post war England her hobbies include, bike riding, snooping around and chemistry. How she loves cooking up poisons. A normal day in the de Luce household goes awry when their cook discovers a dead black bird with an orange stamp impaled on its beak lying on the kitchen step. That same night Flavia overhears an arguement and the following morning finds a dying man in their cucumber patch. Intrigued that a member of her family might be a killer and determined to prove otherwise the youngest de Luce marshals her test tubes in an attempt to solve the case before the police - who think that Flavia is only fit for organizing cups of tea!