The Globe and Mail Profiles Mystery Author Alan Bradley

For every aspiring mystery writer out there (and, be serious, aren't we all?), you gotta love this story.

In tomorrow's print edition of the Globe and Mail (but online today), Fiona Morrow profiles Alan Bradley who, at the tender age of 70, is a newly published mystery author with a six-book international deal and a contract "well into six figures".

And it all started with but a 15 page opening chapter for a proposed mystery submitted into the Debut Dagger competition sponsored by the UK Crime Writers' Association in 2007. Bradley's entry won, and by November of 2008 his debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie featuring 11-year-old amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce, was published in the UK. It hits Canadian booksellers this week, and is available in the US in April. [MBN note: the link is for the US edition; pre-orders are being taken by Amazon.com.]

Set in 1950s Britain, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is powered by its indefatigable narrator, the precocious chemist and incipient Miss Marple, Flavia de Luce. Aided and abetted by her trusty BSA bicycle, Flavia careens around between the genteel village of Bishop's Lacey and Buckshaw -- her family's stately home -- attempting to solve the mystery of the dead man she discovered in the cucumber patch.

Morrow reports that with the manuscript of the second novel just delivered and the remaining four mapped out, Bradley has settled into a writing routine. He wakes at 4:30 AM, makes tea, eats an orange and works his way toward his desk. "The hardest part of writing," he confides, "is sitting down. Once I'm there, I'm good -- I write about 1,000 words a day.".

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