C. Alan Bradley

On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother. Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later he is pushed under the train by someone in the crowd. Following a trail of clues, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston...

"Colonel de Luce, in desperate need of funds, rents his beloved estate of Buckshaw over to a film company. They will be shooting a movie over the Christmas holidays, filming scenes in the stately manse with a famous and reclusive star. She is widely despised, so it is to no one's surprise when she turns up murdered, strangled by a length of film from her own movies! With the snow raging outside and Buckshaw locked in, the house is full of suspects....

"Although it is autumn in the small English town of Bishop's Lacey, the chapel is decked with exotic flowers. Yes, Flavia de Luce's sister Ophelia is at last getting hitched, like a mule to a wagon. "A church is a wonderful place for a wedding, " muses Flavia, "surrounded as it is by the legions of the dead, whose listening bones bear silent witness to every promise made at the altar." Flavia is not your normal twelve-year-old girl. An expert in the...