Book Summary and Reviews of Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

Speaking from Among the Bones

A Flavia de Luce Novel

by Alan Bradley

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  • Published:
  • Jan 2013, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Memorable, often funny prose complements the crafty plot of Bradley's fifth Flavia de Luce novel." - Publishers Weekly

"The Flavia bandwagon rolls on: Not only will she star in five more novels, but she'll also shine in several made-for-television films." - Kirkus

Bradley's Flavia cozies, set in the English countryside, have been a hit from the start, and this fifth in the series continues to charm and entertain, as Flavia - so intellectually mature yet socially unschooled - takes advantage of being able to go about unnoticed because of her youth. A final cliff-hanger guarantees interest in the next installment." - Booklist

This information about Speaking from Among the Bones was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Alan Bradley Author Biography

Photo: Shirley Bradley

Alan Bradley is the New York Times bestselling author of many short stories, children's stories, newspaper columns, and the memoir The Shoebox Bible. His first Flavia de Luce novel, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, received the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award, the Dilys Winn Award, the Arthur Ellis Award, the Agatha Award, the Macavity Award, and the Barry Award, and was nominated for the Anthony Award. His other Flavia de Luce novels are The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, A Red Herring Without Mustard, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Speaking from Among the Bones, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, and Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd, as well as the ebook short story "The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse."

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