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Speaking from Among the Bones: A Flavia de…
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Speaking from Among the Bones: A Flavia de Luce Novel (original 2013; edition 2013)

by Alan Bradley

Series: Flavia de Luce (5)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,8891828,765 (4.1)289
Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From award-winning author Alan Bradley comes the next cozy British mystery starring intrepid young sleuth Flavia de Luce, hailed by USA Today as “one of the most remarkable creations in recent literature.”

 
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.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Bradley’s The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches.

Acclaim for Speaking from Among the Bones
 
“[Alan] Bradley scores another success. . . . This series is a grown-up version of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and all those mysteries you fell in love with as a child.”The San Diego Union-Tribune
 
“The precocious and irrepressible Flavia . . . continues to delight.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Fiendishly brilliant . . . Bradley has created an utterly charming cast of characters . . . as quirky as any British mystery fan could hope for.”—Bookreporter
 
“Delightful and entertaining.”San Jose Mercury News.
… (more)
Member:parkavenuekid
Title:Speaking from Among the Bones: A Flavia de Luce Novel
Authors:Alan Bradley
Info:Delacorte Press (2013), Hardcover, 400 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley (2013)

  1. 31
    The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer (LongDogMom)
    LongDogMom: Another historical with a young female genius...in this case the much younger (and somewhat neglected) sister of Sherlock Holmes. Has a lot of Flavia's spunk and determination to prove her worth although written for a younger audience.
  2. 31
    The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (Friederike.Geissler)
  3. 21
    I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: Although I Capture the Castle is a coming-of-age story, not a mystery, both witty novels are narrated by precocious girls who, left to their own devices by their eccentric families, pursue adventures within the confines of quiet English villages.… (more)
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» See also 289 mentions

English (184)  German (1)  All languages (183)
Showing 1-5 of 182 (next | show all)
Loved it. I wish reviewer's would stop referring to these as cozy's, I don't think they qualify.
A child character that is not obnoxious or ovrly cutesy is tough, but Bradley gets it just right. Real bombshell at the end ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
audio mystery/historical fiction, #5 in series(10 hours)

this is actually a re-read but it's hard not to enjoy Jayne Entwistle's narration of 11 y.o. Flavia, scarcely containing her glee over all things chemistry and murder. #5 in the series takes place in the spring (overlapping Easter) of 1951 England, just as Ophelia announces her engagement to Dieter, and Flavia adopts her pet chicken Esmeralda. ( )
  reader1009 | Feb 24, 2024 |
Fifth in the Flavia de Luce series, this opens with the impending opening of the tomb of the local saint in the church crypt. Flavia manages to be present, thrilled as ever to view a body - except the one first encountered is that of the local organist who had supposed left the village in mysterious circumstances. It turns out, he didn't - he was murdered, rather grotesquely. So Flavia is off on another investigation, and this time she has a couple of rivals, a visiting private detective-botany expert, and a rather odd soprano with bottle-end glasses.

The twists and turns are considerable in this story, and a lot of subplots are introduced, some of which are left hanging, most obviously that of Jocelyn, the congenitally damaged son of a local magistrate, who lives an existence shut away from the world, but who, it turns out, was visited by Flavia's mother Harriet, who was lost in the Himalayas years ago. And the ongoing story of the de Luce money problems escalates when their grand house is put up for sale. Now Flavia has the worry of what will happen to her family, not to mention her father's manservant, Dogger, who is a mainstay in Flavia's life given her cold and distant father and sadistic sisters, plus the impending loss of her fully equipped chem lab and her bicycle Gladys, which she endows with an engaging personality. And the book ends with an unexpected cliffhanger.

The only thing that kept this back from a 5 star rating for me was that there was a bit of meandering with the various cast and their machinations, plus one sequence in the middle involving double doors which, despite two careful re-reads just didn't make sense: how could a door bolted from the inside be opened by a key from the outside? But other than that, there was a lot to enjoy, as ever. ( )
  kitsune_reader | Nov 23, 2023 |
I think this one was a bit too long for my taste, or else the whole Flavia thing is wearing thin. Still the same writing and characters, but I was hoping for it to be over. Somehow I found her to be a bit pretentious in this book. Some interesting developments pop up right at the end, though, and I'm stuck reading the next one just to see how it all works out.... ( )
  kwskultety | Jul 4, 2023 |
Well. There are the usual concerns for me here (chiefly, why is an 11-year-old girl, even one so precocious as Flavia de Luce, not in school?) but it is a nicely developed murder mystery. Flavia delights in all things chemical, including dead bodies, so she is thrilled to stumble over one quite unexpectedly. As usual she sneaks about her hamlet, dodging the police (and this time, rival investigators) to ferret out a killer. Once again salvation may be at hand for her indebted and beleaguered father and their crumbling estate, if all the ducks fall in line just so. But, the very last line of the book (and I won't repeat it here), is a bombshell that will undoubtedly change the rest of the series. I hope I can pick up the next volume at the library before I go on vacation next week! ( )
  karenchase | Jun 14, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 182 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (5 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Bradley, Alanprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Entwistle, JayneNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Heikinheimo, MaijaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Montgomery, JoeCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Moscowitz, OrliExecutive producersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Perini, BenCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Thornburn, CathyDirectorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
Now from yon black and funeral yew,
That bathes the charnel-house with dew,
Methinks I hear a voice begin;
(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din;
Ye tolling clocks, no time resound
O'er the long lake and midnight ground)
It sends a peal of hollow groans,
Thus speaking from among the bones.

Thomas Parnell,
A Night-Piece on Death (1721)
Dedication
For Shirley
First words
Blood dripped from the neck of the severed head and fell in a drizzle of red raindrops, clotting into a ruby pool upon the black and white tiles.
Quotations
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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Mystery. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From award-winning author Alan Bradley comes the next cozy British mystery starring intrepid young sleuth Flavia de Luce, hailed by USA Today as “one of the most remarkable creations in recent literature.”

 
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.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Alan Bradley’s The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches.

Acclaim for Speaking from Among the Bones
 
“[Alan] Bradley scores another success. . . . This series is a grown-up version of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and all those mysteries you fell in love with as a child.”The San Diego Union-Tribune
 
“The precocious and irrepressible Flavia . . . continues to delight.”Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Fiendishly brilliant . . . Bradley has created an utterly charming cast of characters . . . as quirky as any British mystery fan could hope for.”—Bookreporter
 
“Delightful and entertaining.”San Jose Mercury News.

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Book description
It is almost Easter in Bishop's Lacey, and the villagers are holding their collective breath as the tomb of St Tancred in the church that bears his name is about to be opened after five hundred years. And as luck would have it, it's inveterate eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce who is first at the scene. But the body she finds lying there is clearly not that of a desiccated saint. For a start there's the pool of fresh blood, and then there's the gasmask, from under which an unmistakeable shock of golden hair identifies the corpse as that of Mr Collicutt, St Tancred's celebrated organist. Despite her tender years, Flavia is no stranger to murder - but even she is baffled by the peculiar circumstances of Collicutt's death. Especially when soon after, an effigy of St Tancred appears to be weeping blood onto the church floor. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, Flavia soon finds herself exploring a secret maze of underground passages beneath the church - and is drawn into the equally dark and fetid world of one of Bishop's Lacey's most peculiar families.
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