Book description
'You frighten me,' the Gypsy said. 'Never have I seen my crystal ball
so filled with darkness.' So begins eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce's
third adventure through the charming but deceptively dark byways of the
village of Bishop's Lacey. What the fortune teller in fact claimed to
see was a vision of Flavia's mother, Harriet, who died on a mountainside
in Tibet when Flavia was less than a year old. 'She's trying to come
home,' the old woman intones. 'And she needs your help.' For Flavia, the
old gypsy's words open up old wounds and new possibilities - not all of
them nice ones. Is she a faker, motivated by the fact that the rom used
to camp in the grounds of Buckshaw until Flavia's father turned them
off, with tragic results? Or is there some truth to her powers, and the
message she brings back from the other side? And when the village is
rocked by another ghastly murder, how will a growing fascination with
gypsy lore help Flavia to solve it? Alan Bradley was born into a
family of storytellers who never stopped talking about the old days
'back home' in England - for which he is eternally grateful. He lives
with his wife, Shirley, in Gozo.
