The book’s editors recommend “the use of one's imagination” in this book, and understandably so: Imagine an English stately home, where a relatively young widower lives with his three daughters. Imagine that one of them, 11 years old, is a genius in chemistry (or rather poisons) and combines a limitless persistence to talents that Sherlock Holmes would want for himself. Imagine that one day a corpse appears in the cucumber garden, and that the father is arrested, and Flavia set to do everything to save him (even accuse herself of the crime, if necessary). Undoubtedly, the main character is unrealistic. However, once you get into the game proposed by the author, Flavia becomes a delightful character, that -if she is able to do things that would leave James Bond wanting- is always, to the reader, an 11-year-old girl, with an outstanding ability to extract information from adults (age advantage) and soften up her older sisters.

Definitely a well-written classic detective novel, with intelligent dialogues and a good dose of irony (nothing bitter); a book for all ages to read with ease and a smile in the mouth; a breath of fresh air in a genre that "sometimes" seems unable to avoid the gruesome or scandalous to create interest.

D.L. - J.M. - J.V. (2010)