Flavia de Luce mysteries

Written by Alan Bradley , “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” is book 1 and “The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag” is book 2 of Flavia De Luce Mysteries.
Check the website: Flavia de Luce
From the website:
“Picture an ancient country house somewhere in England. The year is 1950. Picture a girl who lives there with her most unusual family. Her name is Flavia de Luce—and she’s almost eleven. Picture a long-abandoned Victorian chemistry laboratory; no one ever goes there but Flavia. Put them all together and you’ll have a new kind of detective fiction . . .”

“The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie”:
"Great literary crime detectives aren’t always born; they’re sometimes discovered, blindfolded and tied up in a dark closet by their nasty older sisters. Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce’s bitter home life and vicious sibling war inspires her solitary diversions and “strange talents” tinkering with the chemistry set in the laboratory of their inherited Victorian house, plotting sleuth-like vengeance on Ophelia (17) and Daphne (13), and delving into the forbidden past of her taciturn, widowed father, Colonel de Luce. It comes as no surprise, then, that the material for her next scientific investigation will be the mysterious corpse that she uncovers in the cucumber patch. Fearless and darkly imaginative, Flavia hurries to solve the murder and acquit her father of suspicion. Following the lead of its clever protagonist, Sweetness is entirely inventive, fast-paced, and quick-witted, with tongue-in-cheek humour that derides the macabre seriousness of subject. "

“The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag”:
"When a traveling puppet show sets up on the village green in Bishop’s Lacey, death stalks the little stage. Flavia goes behind the scenes to learn the craft (so to speak) in order to catch an ingenious killer. "

I fell in love with this series. Flavia is a self-taught chemist and has a passion for poisons. As a former chemist (and yes, with a passion for natural ingredients and herbal extracts including poisons) I enjoyed reading about Flavia’s adventures, her detective tendencies and her fights with her sisters. She is so intellectual and logical at times but with her family she is the little girl who misses her mother and needs love and attention.
I can’t wait for the rest of the books (three more) to be released. The third one, “A Red Herring Without Mustard” is due Feb 8, 2011.