The creator of the precocious, poison-loving young sleuth Flavia de Luce, whose literary career famously began in his eighth decade, has died. Alan Bradley, the Canadian mystery author and former television engineer, was 87. He passed away on the Isle of Man, leaving behind a legacy defined by a remarkable late-life transformation.

Bradley was 70 years old when his debut novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, was published. This late-life bloom began in earnest when he won the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award in 2007 for the first 15 pages of the manuscript. He had taken early retirement from the University of Saskatchewan in 1994 to pursue writing full-time, a move that eventually introduced the world to an 11-year-old chemist-detective. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, Bradley was intrigued by how all of creation was held together by invisible chemical bonds, a concept that provided a sense of real stability. He often spoke of the gift of wonder, noting that an 11-year-old exists at a magical age where anything is possible.

This stability was a far cry from his early years in the lakeside town of Cobourg, Ontario. Born in Toronto, Bradley was raised by his mother and two older sisters after his father abandoned the family when he was a toddler. As a sickly child, he spent long periods in bed or darkened rooms, a seclusion that fostered a voracious reading habit. He once remarked that he did more reading than writing, a practice that began in those quiet, early years. These periods of isolation served as the prelude to his interior world, where he developed the patience that would define his later success. He advised others to hang on to their youthful enthusiasms, believing they could be used more effectively later in life.

Before he was a novelist, Bradley was a man of technical precision. He studied electronic engineering at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and worked as a radio and television engineer in Cobourg before moving to Saskatoon in 1969. He spent 25 years as the Director of Television Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan. While he claimed to know nothing about chemistry, his technical background informed the meticulous lab work of his protagonist. His engineering mind eventually fueled the chemistry lab of Flavia de Luce, bridging the gap between his professional past and his creative future. In 2004, he co-authored Ms. Holmes of Baker Street, a study that controversially suggested Sherlock Holmes was a woman.

Bradley's Flavia de Luce series eventually sold over six million copies and was translated into 36 languages. Kristin Cochrane, CEO of Penguin Random House Canada, noted that his extraordinary imagination and craft brought joy to readers for more than fifteen years, as reported by Newswire. Even in his final years living on the Maltese island of Gozo and later the Isle of Man with his wife, Shirley, Bradley maintained his youthful enthusiasm. A film adaptation of his first novel starring Martin Freeman was in production at the time of his death, and a final posthumous novel, Numb Were the Beadsman's Fingers, is scheduled for publication in November 2026.

Bradley will be remembered as a master of the slow burn, a writer who proved that the most vibrant chapters of a life can be written long after the traditional working years have ended. His work captured a specific kind of intellectual whimsy, blending the cold logic of a laboratory with the warm heart of a child's curiosity. By transforming his technical expertise into literary gold, he showed that no experience is wasted and that a debut at 70 can resonate as loudly as any youthful arrival. He leaves behind a world made more curious by his presence and a character who will continue to solve mysteries long after her creator has found his own peace. He is survived by his wife, Shirley, and his two sisters.