Speaking From Among the Bones

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When the tomb of St. Tancred is opened at a village church in Bishop's Lacey, its shocking contents lead to another case for Flavia de Luce, where greed, pride and murder result in old secrets coming to light, along with a forgotten flower that hasn't been seen for half a thousand years.

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Murder in an English town submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on July 13, 2013, 11:51pm In this latest of the Flavia de Luce mystery series, our young genius discovers a corpse in a grave, but not the one that's meant to be there. This corpse is of the church's organist, who has only been missing a few weeks.

Flavia de Luce, who lives with her father and two older sisters in the fictional English town of Bishop's Lacey (which has a shockingly high murder rate) in the 1950s, solves crime after crime in this series for young readers. The police do not appreciate her intrusions, although she usually solves the case for them. In this case, Flavia has again inserted herself into the middle of the town's events: the opening of the grave of St Tancred, for whom the village church is named.

As she investigates, Flavia spends a lot of time in the graveyard and even inside the graves, which brings about rather disgusting descriptions of rotting corpses and grave wax. This book is not for the faint of heart.

I very much appreciated having a young female character demonstrate so much intelligence and bravery, something I find lacking in many novels for children (although adults will also enjoy the series). Readers should note, however, that as it is set in the 1950s, the Flavia series does demonstrate the prejudices of the era, including sexism and xenophobia.