Literary Friday: Speaking From Among the Bones

"Picture an ancient country house somewhere in England. The year is 1950.

Picture a girl who lives there with her most unusual family. Her name is Flavia de Luce—and she’s almost eleven.

Picture a long-abandoned Victorian chemistry laboratory; no one ever goes there but Flavia. Put them all together and you’ll have a new kind of detective fiction . . ."

~from flaviadeluce.com

This week I read Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley.  It's the latest Flavia de Luce murder mystery, and it might be my favorite one yet.

These are the first four books in the series:

You can read my post about A Red Herring Without Mustard here.

You can read my post about I Am Half-Sick of Shadows here.

So just who is Flavia de Luce?  Flavia is an eleven year old genius who helps solve murders in Bishop's Lacey, England, circa 1950.  She lives in Buckshaw, a run-down estate with her father, the Colonel, and her 17 year old sister, Ophelia, (Feely) and her 14 year old sister, Daphne (Daffy).  Mrs. Mullet the cook and Dogger the butler are charming characters as they try to keep things running smoothly on the estate.  Buckshaw belonged to Flavia's mother, Harriet, who was lost on a mountain climbing expedition in The Himalayas when Flavia was just a toddler.  Buckshaw and most of their wealth was hers, but without a will, the family has fallen upon hard times.

Flavia discovered her late Uncle Tarquin's well-equipped chemistry lab in the east wing, and she has claimed it for herself.  She spends time reading Uncle Tar's journals and correspondence, and she retains everything.  Flavia has a creepy obsession with poisons, and dreams {creatively} of ways to off her sisters.  :D   With her wits, deductive reasoning skills, knowledge of chemistry, and her trusty bicycle named Gladys, Flavia solves Bishop's Lacey's unusually high number of murders. Seriously, for a small English hamlet in the early fifties, the violent crime rate is ridiculously high.

In Speaking From Among the Bones, the folks of Bishop's Lacey are preparing for the 500th Anniversary celebrations of their patron saint's death. Saint Tancred's body is being exhumed from the lower-level crypt below the Anglican Church's nave.  But as the workers open the crypt, the parish's organist Mr. Collicutt's remains are found instead.  He's wearing a gruesome gas mask which doesn't make much sense, not to mention that he is a highly unlikely murder victim in the first place.  As rumors of a Diamond of Lucifer belonging to St. Tancred come to light, some speculate about his having been interred with the treasure. As the plot thickens even more densely than the early Easter morning fog, the clues Flavia collects from right under the noses of the professionals begin fitting together, and Flavia just might have discovered a way to save her beloved Buckshaw.

Again, this is one of my favorites of all her books, *but* it ends with not one, not two, but at least THREE cliffhangers.  The other four books are stand-alones, and don't end in cliffhangers.

I am truly *D*Y*I*N*G to know what happens next because the ending was so unexpected and shocking!  When is The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches coming out?  :/  Oh, the agonizing wait!



Here is a fun title sequence for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie:

This is a linky!  Please share what you've been reading with us!

<center><a border="0" href="http://ricki-treleaven.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv211/rickijilltrip/My%20Sweet%20Girls/P1040470-2.jpg"/></a><center></center></center>I'm taking a blog break until Monday.  I'll visit those who link-up to Literary Friday, and I'll catch-up with the rest of you next week!
Until next time...Happy reading!
Ricki Jill