As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust

What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

What this book is about

Flavia de Luce is sent to Miss Bodycote's Female Academy in Toronto, the same school her mother attended. On her first night, a charred body falls from the chimney of her room. The school has a history of disappearances — girls who vanished without explanation — and Flavia, now twelve, has to navigate an unfamiliar country, a new institution with its own secrets, and a mystery that connects to her mother's past. Alan Bradley's seventh Flavia de Luce novel shifts the series' geography while maintaining its central concerns: chemistry, death, and the particular intelligence of a girl whom adults consistently underestimate.