**edited 02/01/14 
 A lighthearted and enjoyable murder mystery romp with engaging and entertaining characters. Flavia, the protagonist and investigator, is a horrifyingly precocious 11-year-old girl with a macabre obsession with poisons and chemistry. 
 The characters and setting bring back the best of the Golden Age cozy mysteries. We have a cast of characters that seems to have been taken straight out of an Agatha Christie: a distant parent, a shell-shocked servant, a garrulous cook, an intense spinster, and the down-to-earth, intelligent police inspector (think Superintendent Battle). But what makes this novel stand out is the quirky amateur detective/protagonist: the 11-year-old Flavia. Flavia lightens the tone with her intense rivalry with her siblings, her almost psycopathic enjoyment of manipulating the adults around her, her obsession with trivial details, and her brilliant and wild flights of imagination. Even if there are a few peculiarities in the character's voice, Bradley has fully captured the capriciousness and energy of an 11-year-old and created an indomitable, quirky, and above all, captivating little protagonist. 
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 Due to my disapproval of GR's new and highly subjective review deletion policy, I am no longer posting full reviews here. 
 The rest of this review can be found on Booklikes.