TITLE: SPEAKING FROM AMONG THE BONES
AUTHOR: ALAN BRADLEY
Pages: 378
Date: 23/02/2013
Grade: 4.5
Details: no. 5 Flavia de Luce
Received from Random House
Through NetGalley
Own / Kindle
The official blurb:
“Eleven-year-old amateur detective and
ardent chemist Flavia de Luce is used to digging up clues, whether they’re
found among the potions in her laboratory or between the pages of her
insufferable sisters’ diaries. What she is not accustomed to is digging up bodies. Upon the five-hundredth
anniversary of St. Tancred’s death, the English hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey is
busily preparing to open its patron saint’s tomb. Nobody is more excited to
peek inside the crypt than Flavia, yet what she finds will halt the proceedings
dead in their tracks: the body of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist, his face
grotesquely and inexplicably masked. Who held a vendetta against Mr. Collicutt,
and why would they hide him in such a sacred resting place? The irrepressible
Flavia decides to find out. And what she unearths will prove there’s never such
thing as an open-and-shut case.”
This is the fifth
book featuring the precocious Flavia de Luce and she is as clever, curious,
bold and infuriating as ever. Always among the first to witness anything that
happens in the little town of Bishop’s
Lacey it is hardly surprising that Flavia is among those present when the tomb
of St. Tancred is opened despite objections from the Bishop and the local
magistrate. And she is as surprised as everybody else when the body of Mr.
Collicutt, the church organist who has been missing for six weeks, is
discovered with, rather shockingly, a gas-mask on his face. Never one to curb
her curiosity and always eager to outsmart Inspector Hewitt, Flavia embarks on
yet another of her investigations. Accompanied by her trusted bike “Gladys”,
our young investigator travels Bishop’s Lacey and its surrounding areas talking
to anybody who might be able to throw some light on the mystery of why the
organist would have been murdered and left in such an obscure place. Over the
course of her investigation Flavia doesn’t only uncover clues about the reasons
behind the murder though. She also has a close encounter with her mother’s
(Harriet’s) past; an encounter that will put a stop to her sisters’ powers to
hurt her once and for all.
But there is more
happening in Flavia’s life. It seems that her father has at last lost his
battle against the creditors and that they may lose their home “Buckshaw”. And
while Flavia’s sisters are suddenly less horrible towards her than they have
been in the past, the girl finds herself inclined to think kinder thoughts
about them too. In fact, Flavia doesn’t quite understand her own emotions and
reactions anymore. Everything that appeared to be emotionally straight-forward
in the past is suddenly new and surprising to her and she has no idea what may
be at the root of that change.
This is a wonderful
series of mystery books. Flavia is as endearing a protagonist as she can be
infuriating. While the idea of a twelve year old girl not only investigating
but also solving murders is charming, the girl herself comes across as a bit
too smart, too insightful, for her age at times. Having said that, her smarts
appear to be limited to science and murder; when it comes to human emotions,
her own and those of others, she is exactly as you would expect to see in one
so young. And this makes for a wonderful and at times funny combination.
I liked the setting
of this book; Rural England in the 1950’s makes for a charming place and also
helps to explain why a young girl is able to freely travel her surroundings
without worried parents and neighbours trying to stop her. In many ways this
book reminds me a bit of Agatha Christie stories; the county setting, where
everybody knows each other; the charming but rather clueless priest; and, of
course, the unlikely but very successful investigator, be it that Miss Marple
and Flavia are on different extremes of the age scale. The fact that Mrs.
Christie’s books are mentioned in this story therefore put a big smile on my
face.
Another thing I
love in these books is the near perfect balance between the excitement of
solving the mystery and the details of Flavia’s turbulent life. Flavia may have a child’s
ability to more or less ignore the bigger problems brewing around her, she
can’t help being affected by them and suffering under her inability to do
anything useful to help. I like the way we see Flavia grow up over the course
of these books and although I hope we won’t be confronted by too much teenage
angst in books to come it will be fun to see how she and the people around her
fare in future stories.
And talking about
future stories; this book ends on a rather massive cliff-hanger and I can’t
wait to find out what exactly that last line of the book means for Flavia and
her family.
This is a
wonderfully plotted and very engaging mystery featuring an original and
fascinating main character; a book I would highly recommend to anyone who
enjoys well written cozy mysteries.
