Book Summary and Reviews of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

A Flavia de Luce Novel

by Alan Bradley

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  • Published:
  • Jan 2014, 336 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

On a spring morning in 1951, eleven-year-old chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce gathers with her family at the railway station, awaiting the return of her long-lost mother, Harriet. Yet upon the train's arrival in the English village of Bishop's Lacey, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear. Moments later, he is dead, mysteriously pushed under the train by someone in the crowd.

Who was this man, what did his words mean, and why were they intended for Flavia? Back home at Buckshaw, the de Luces' crumbling estate, Flavia puts her sleuthing skills to the test. Following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, she unravels the deepest secrets of the de Luce clan, involving none other than Winston Churchill himself.

Surrounded by family, friends, and a famous pathologist from the Home Office - and making spectacular use of Harriet's beloved Gipsy Moth plane, Blithe Spirit - Flavia will do anything, even take to the skies, to land a killer.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. The solution to a murder is typically neat, and the conclusion sets up future books nicely." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. This latest adventure contains all the winning elements of the previous books while skillfully establishing a new and intriguing story line to explore in future novels...Fans will be more than pleased, and it makes an excellent suggestion for fans of M.C. Beaton and Elizabeth Peters." - Library Journal

This information about The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches 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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