The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The de Luce family is shocked to find a dead bird on their back doorstep with a postage stamp impaled on its beak.  The father takes it especially bad.  Youngest daughter, Flavia, wonders why her father had been so frightened.

The following morning, just before sunrise, Flavia tripped over a body in the garden.  Flavia has heard her father talking to the man in the garden the night before.  They had talked about killing another person.  Flavia begins her own investigation.  However, shortly afterwards her father is taken away by the police.

Flavia gets to visit her father in the jail, and learns much about the victim, who her father had known in school.  It all comes down to a missing stamp.

That stamp is going to result in young Flavia getting into a fair bit of trouble, yet in the end solving the murder.  This is author Alan Bradley‘s first book in a series, which will prove to be a fun series to read.