The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Bradley

This is on a list of recommended adult books for teens. Its set in England in fairly recent times. It's protagonist is an extremely intelligent 11 year old. She makes tons of references to Shakespeare as well as to lots of obscure (at least to me) literature. Its hard for me to believe that teens could care about, know about, relate to all that stuff. It certainly did not send me off to read any of it. In addition to being extremely well read, she is a genius chemist with a huge well stocked lab and library. Its impossible for me to believe an eleven year old could be that well read AND that good a chemist. The story revolves around an apparent suicide many years earlier witnessed by her father and around extremely rare, valuable missing stamps. One of which went missing at the time of the suicide, another rather later. Flavia becomes involved when one of the gentlemen involved in the earlier incident visits her father then shows up dead in the garden. Its an interesting, twisty story and for a brief time a nail biter as Flavia is captured by the killer. It just seemed too improbable to me. Sorry to all those out there that made this book and others by this author a bestseller. JDW 8/12/10