The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ “The world's greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth” (The Seattle Times), Flavia de Luce, returns in a twisty mystery novel from award-winning 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 her fingers as she dangles them in the water. She clamps down on the object, imagining herself 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.

Praise for The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

“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)

“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
1127341100
The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ “The world's greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth” (The Seattle Times), Flavia de Luce, returns in a twisty mystery novel from award-winning 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 her fingers as she dangles them in the water. She clamps down on the object, imagining herself 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.

Praise for The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

“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)

“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
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The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)

by Alan Bradley

Narrated by Jayne Entwistle

Unabridged — 9 hours, 48 minutes

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place (Flavia de Luce Series #9)

by Alan Bradley

Narrated by Jayne Entwistle

Unabridged — 9 hours, 48 minutes

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Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ “The world's greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth” (The Seattle Times), Flavia de Luce, returns in a twisty mystery novel from award-winning 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 her fingers as she dangles them in the water. She clamps down on the object, imagining herself 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.

Praise for The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

“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)

“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

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

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

Kirkus Reviews

2017-10-24
Now that both King George VI and her own beloved father have died (Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd, 2016, etc.), preteen sleuth/savant/troublemaker Flavia de Luce fears that she'll have to submit to the iron rule of her Aunt Felicity—but not before another "happy holiday" with murder intervenes.Whisked off by family retainer Arthur Dogger on a river trip to Volesthorpe along with her sisters, Flavia trails her hand in the water just long enough to snag the corpse of alcoholic young actor Orlando Whitbread, the protégé of one-legged actress-turned-director Poppy Mandrill, of the Puddle Lane Little Theatre. Before his recent death, Orlando's greatest claim to fame had been through his father, Canon George Whitbread, who'd been executed for poisoning three of his parishioners at Holy Communion. Convinced, despite the evidence smug Constable J.R. Otter brandishes that Orlando drowned in the river, that he was poisoned, Flavia resolves to investigate the new mystery and reopen the old. 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. This time it also brings Flavia up against undertaker's son Hob Nightingale, a ragamuffin even younger and odder than her who comes across as something of a kindred spirit, a solace she richly deserves.Despite a climactic attempt on her life, 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.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940171791087
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 01/30/2018
Series: Flavia de Luce Series , #9
Edition description: Unabridged

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Copyright © 2018 Alan Bradley.
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