The Golden Tresses of the Dead
A Flavia de Luce Novel
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4.3 • 207 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A finger in a wedding cake is only the beginning in this deliciously shocking mystery featuring Flavia de Luce, “the world’s greatest adolescent British chemist/busybody/sleuth” (The Seattle Times).
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 chemical nature of poisons, she has solved many mysteries, sharpening her considerable detection skills to the point where she had little choice but to turn professional. So Flavia and dependable Dogger, estate gardener and sounding board extraordinaire, set up shop at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, eager to serve—not so simple an endeavor with her odious little moon-faced cousin, Undine, constantly underfoot. But Flavia and Dogger persevere. Little does she know that their first case will be extremely close to home, beginning with an unwelcome discovery in Ophelia’s wedding cake: a human finger.
Praise for The Golden Tresses of the Dead
“Delightful . . . The mysteries in Mr. Bradley’s books are engaging, but the real lure is Ms. de Luce, the irreverent youngster.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A ghoulish question is at the heart of Bradley’s excellent tenth Flavia de Luce novel. . . . Bradley, who has few peers at combining fair-play clueing with humor and has fun mocking genre conventions, shows no sign of running out of ideas.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A ghoulish question is at the heart of Bradley's excellent 10th Flavia de Luce novel set in 1950s England (after 2018's The Grave's a Fine and Private Place): "How had an embalmed finger found its way from the hand of a dead woman in a Surrey cemetery into the heart of a wedding cake at Buckshaw?" Though only in her early teens, chemistry prodigy Flavia has formed a private detective agency with Arthur Dogger, her late father's valet, at the family estate of Buckshaw. The discovery at her sister Ophelia's wedding of the severed digit which turns out to have come from the corpse of a guitar impresario presents Flavia and Dogger with her first case. Meanwhile, the sleuths get their first client when Anastasia Prill asks for their help in recovering some sensitive stolen letters relating to her father's homeopathic practice, an inquiry that turns into a homicide investigation. Bradley, who has few peers at combining fair-play clueing with humor and has fun mocking genre conventions, shows no sign of running out of ideas.
Customer Reviews
A Cozy
getting 5 stars? Why yes. Have read every one of Mr Bradley’s delightful books and even reread my favorites years later. Appropriate for children 12 & up and Moms & Dads too.
Golden Tresses of the Dead
There is everything to love about this book. I find myself rationing pages so I keep the story going a bit longer. Each book is a treasure!
The Golden Tresses ...
This 72 year old guy says, "Please let their be more!" And when does Flavia get a love interest? Thanks for these great stories. DH