Speaking from Among the Bones
by Alan Bradley
★★★★
This is the fifth book in the Flavia de Luce mystery novels. Each one features Flavia, an 11-year-old detective, as she investigates a murder in a small English town. Honestly each of the mysteries blends together in my mind, but the characters' relationships stand out. As long as Flavia and Dogger are main characters in these books I will never grow tired of them.
Flavia's awkward fumbling to figure out who she is as a young woman and who her missing mother was is enthralling. She is such a brilliant girl, but she's also been neglected by her depressed father. He is caught in the midst of money troubles and has to put their home, Buckshaw, up for sale. Left to her own devises she tries hard to act older than she is, but she's still vulnerable.
"As was your mother, you have been given the fatal gift of genius. Because of it, your life will not be an easy one."
This mystery revolves around a young man, Crispin Collicut, who is found dead in the church. At the same time the bones of a saint are being exhumed and a missing diamond might be at the heart of the story. The writing in the series is always good and this addition is no exception. I particularly loved learning more about the Vicar Denwyn Richardson and his wife Cynthia and their deceased daughter Hannah.
BOTTOM LINE: I love Flavia and I'm so glad Bradley keeps adding to the series. If he keeps writing them I will keep reading them.
"I was learning that the best conversations consisted of keeping quiet and listening and speaking, when one spoke at all, and a single syllable."
"Was sorrow, in the end, a private thing? A closed container? Something that could be borne only on a single pair of shoulders?"
"'I'm sorry,' I said, aware even as I spoke, what useless things, really, words of sympathy are, even though they're sometimes all we have."
