Flavia de Luce is at it again. “It” is being awesome, and solving a murder.

“Please don’t condescend to me, Mr. Sowerby, I’m not a child. Well actually – strictly speaking, and in the eyes of the law – I suppose I am a child, but still, I resent being treated like one.” This, in a nutshell, is Flavia de Luce.

I adore this series! Though a quote on the book jacket describes the young protagonist as Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys (an apt description) I prefer to think of her as a young Jessica Fletcher, and the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacy is Flavia’s Cabot Cove, a small town with a bizarre number of recent murders, the number of which continues to rise.

Flavia uses her scientific sensibility, and insatiable curiosity, to poke around when suspicious things happen in her small town much to the delight, and/or ire, of adults. She has a big heart, and even bigger ideas, and manages to be smarter than many of the adults while still maintaining naivete about the big bad world. Flavia is an incredibly compelling and realistic portrayal of a precocious no-nonsense youth, and Bradley flushes out the rest of this small town with other great juicy characters. Each book in the series shows us a little more about the town, and its people, and I can’t wait to read the next one!