What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust
by Alan Bradley
“To say I am overjoyed by the return of the magnificent Flavia is a massive understatement. It’s a great day when we have her back in our lives with a new, and riveting, crime to solve. Brava Flavia. Bravo Alan!” — LOUISE PENNY
"Cozy mystery fans will love this latest installment featuring Flavia de Luce, Alan Bradley's plucky and spirited protagonist. Delightful!" — NITA PROSE, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid
"I love the Flavia de Luce novels! I identify, though I unfortunately didn't have an Uncle Tarquin and was forced to make do with a Christmas chemistry set from the Sears catalog. Flavia is the best female detective I've ever read, full of realism, self-confidence and emotion (in roughly equal parts), and her tales are hilarious, engaging and occasionally heart-breaking.” — DIANA GABALDON, #1 New York Times bestselling author
PRAISE FOR ALAN BRADLEY'S FLAVIA DE LUCE SERIES
“Delightful…. Historical fiction and mystery readers alike are sure to rejoice at getting to spend another afternoon in Flavia's agreeable world.”
— SHELFAWARENESS
“Take the precociousness of Harriet the Spy, the deductive reasoning skills of Sherlock Holmes and the chemistry prowess of Marie Curie and you’ll have Flavia de Luce, the adorable heroine of Alan Bradley’s mystery series.” — THE WILKES BARRE TIMES LEADER
“A charming jumble of clues, false trails and surprises, all narrated in Flavia’s droll, amusing voice.”— CRITICSATLARGE.CA
“Alan Bradley has created one of the most endearing protagonists the traditional mystery genre, typified by the works of Agatha Christie, has seen in a very long time…. With this…Bradley, a Canadian who now lives in Malta, secures his position as a confident, talented writer and storyteller.”— THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“She now seems certain to become a national treasure…. She is as addictive as dark chocolate and as English as Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending.”— DAILY MAIL
“Flavia, once more, entertains and delights as she exposes the inner workings of her investigative mind to the reader. But the same reader will be heartened by some new developments in her emotional growth, with a surprising but pleasing twist ending that adds a number of new narrative layers for forthcoming volumes.”— NATIONAL POST
“This is a delightful read through and through. We find in Flavia an incorrigible and wholly lovable detective; from her chemical experiments in her sanctum sanctorum to her outrage at the idiocy of the adult world, she is unequaled.”— LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
“Let a little boy out of your sight and he’ll get into mischief. Take your eyes off a little girl and she’s liable to turn into a detective—maybe an adorable snoop like Flavia de Luce.”— THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Flavia is incisive, cutting and hilarious. She's…one of the most remarkable creations in recent literature.”— USA TODAY
“Delightful…. Only those who dislike precocious young heroines with extraordinary vocabulary and audacious courage can fail to like this amazingly entertaining book. Expect more from the talented Bradley.”— BOOKLIST, starred review
In the absence of adult supervision, Flavia has taken on the mentorship of her “pestilent” younger cousin Undine, who came to live at Bucksaw when her mother died (volume 10). Undine too seems fascinated by mayhem. Flavia has nigglings of doubt about her motivations. Has Undine inherited her dead mother’s darkness? Or worse?
A mysterious villager, Major Greyleigh, a virtual hermit and former public hangman with stomach-curdling deeds in his past, has been found dead, killed by ingesting poisonous mushrooms.
“I have to admit,” says Flavia, “that I’d been praying to God, the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints for a mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift such has mine without giving her the opportunity to use it?”
The “odious, moon-faced” Undine is becoming increasingly crude and gregarious, and constantly tests her limits by pushing Flavia to undertake rash deeds, while Undine in turn is urged on in her daring by one of Flavia’s sister Ophelia’s former suitors, the rascally Carl Pendracka from Cincinnati, who seems, for some reason of his own, to be tutoring the child in unsavoury habits.
In her search for the murderer, Flavia becomes entangled with some rather strange American servicemen, only to be led to the most unlikely of suspects.
Many loose threads from books 1-10 are pulled together in this volume. In the end, the unimaginable comes to light: Flavia — with the help and hindrance of the unpredictable Undine — discovers what really happened to Flavia’s father, whom Flavia was not allowed to visit on his death bed (at the end of volume 8).
The discovery reveals details about his involvement with the shadowy Nide (introduced in volumes 6-8) — the infamous ultra-secret espionage organization that operated during World War II and that seems to have been involved also in Flavia’s mother Harriet’s mountaintop death (introduced in volume 1 and developed in later volumes as Flavia follows clues to the circumstances of her mother’s death). Flavia’s unexpected prying into secrets old and new has produce the greatest shock of her life, inspiring a rage that will change the course of everyone’s lives, paving the way for future investigations.
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80,000 words
Full manuscript available
RIGHTS SOLD
US: Bantam (September 2024)
Canada: Doubleday (September 2024)
UK: Orion
Germany: Blanvalet
Italy: Sellerio
Finland: Bazar Kustannus Oy
(Photo by Shirley Bradley)
ABOUT ALAN BRADLEY
Alan Bradley is the internationally bestselling author of short stories, children’s stories, newspaper columns, and the memoir The Shoebox Bible. The Flavia de Luce mystery series has been sold in 39 territories. The books have been bestsellers in Canada, the USA, Germany, Russia, Brazil, China, and Holland, appearing on bestseller lists in The New York Times and Der Spiegel.
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The Golden Tresses of the Dead makes The Globe and Mail's bestsellers list yet again!
Book 10 of Bradley's Flavia de Luce series is a New York Times bestseller!
Bradley's latest Flavia de Luce mystery spends another week on The Globe and Mail's bestseller list!
The Golden Tresses of the Dead is a Publishers Weekly bestseller for February 4th
Flavia de Luce is #6 on Publishers Weekly's list of the 20 bestselling international books
Read Alan Bradley's special contribution to The Globe and Mail
The Golden Tresses of the Dead makes The Star's bestsellers list
Alan Bradley talks Flavia de Luce and the fate of the preteen detective in The Star
The Golden Tresses of the Dead is #4 on the CBC's list of bestselling books in Canada
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Another starred review for Flavia de Luce Book #10, this time from Publishers Weekly!
Book 10 of the Flavia de Luce series receives a starred review from Booklist