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

by Alan Bradley

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780345539991
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/30/2018
Series:	Flavia de Luce Series , #9
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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.”

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Excerpted from "The Grave's a Fine and Private Place"
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Copyright © 2018 Alan Bradley.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
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Editorial Reviews

★ 11/13/2017
Set in England in 1952, Agatha-winner Bradley’s outstanding ninth Flavia de Luce novel (after 2016’s Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d) finds 12-year-old Flavia contemplating suicide in the wake of a family tragedy. To relieve the increased tension between Flavia and her two older sisters, Dogger, the de Luce family’s long-serving and devoted servant, proposes an extended boat trip on the river. All is uneventful until the skiff nears the site where a notorious poisoner, Canon Whitbread, discarded the chalice he used in his crimes. Flavia’s hand, trailing behind the boat, comes into contact with the corpse of the canon’s son, Orlando. Unperturbed, Flavia uses her handkerchief to swab liquid from the dead man’s lips, and she and Dogger jury-rig a forensic lab to examine the sample. Though disappointed when the evidence shows Orlando was drowned instead of poisoned, Flavia persists with her amateur detecting, even as she runs afoul of the local constable. As usual, Bradley makes his improbable series conceit work and relieves the plot’s inherent darkness with clever humor. Agent: Denise Bukowski, Bukowski Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2017
Flavia de Luce, the 12-year-old genius who loves chemistry and murder investigations, is mourning her father's death by spending summer days floating down the river with her sisters and Dogger, the family factotum. As Flavia idly discusses a recent poisoning with Dogger, she drags her hand in the water and catches her fingers in the teeth of a skull. The victim is identified as the son of the notorious Canon Whitbread, who had been hanged for poisoning three women during a church service. As usual, Flavia throws herself into the investigation, using her scientific knowledge and curiosity to endanger herself. There's only one Flavia, the precocious amateur sleuth caught between childhood innocence and book knowledge. This ninth adventure (following Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd) seems to bring an end to one story line as the three sisters and Dogger are prepared to move on with their lives. VERDICT Series fans will anticipate the details of this investigation, along with one last taste of Flavia's unorthodox family life. [See Prepub Alert, 7/3/17.]—LH

Library Journal