Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley

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.

Am I the only one who wanted to strangle Flavia's father? He loved Harriet so much that he would rather part with her house then with one very valuable book, because they have signed it together? Aaaargh.

“Was sorrow, in the end, a private thing? A closed container? Something that, like a bucket of water, could be borne only on a single pair of shoulders?”

The village of Bishop's Lacey is preparing to open the tomb of it's patron saint, St. Tancred, on the five-hundredth anniversary of the saints death. Flavia de Luce is excited to take a peak inside, as she does love a dead body. However, when the body of the church's organist, Mr. Collicut, is found inside, the town is thrown into a tizzy. Who would want to kill an organist, and why hide him in the saint's tomb? Flavia decides to investigate and what she learns is a surprise to everyone.

This book proved to be more complex in plot that previous installments, with more oddball characters, more seemingly unrelated clues, and more plot twists. However, in the last third of the novel, the story came together and clues that were seemingly throwaways or misleading came together in spectacular fashion. This book also deepened the ever present financial situation the de Luce family is embroiled in, as well as worked in some emotional developments in Flavia's relationship with her older sisters Daphne and Ophelia. And, while I didn't need the push, the jaw-dropping cliffhanger Bradley included in the novel's final page has guaranteed that I'll be gobbling up book six in the series as soon as it hits the shelves.

Another good cozy mystery featuring the 11-year old genius detective, Flavia d Luce.
In this story the precocious Flavia spends a lot of time in graveyards and crypts – places where she is quite comfortable, thank you. The story features dead bodies and chemistry of course. Additionally, the story of the de Luce family develops a bit further and we are left with tantalizing questions about the family's future and past.
Alan Bradley had some fun with the main mystery, giving it a nice Agatha Christie feel toward the end. All in all, a nice addition to the series.

What's to be said about this book that I haven't said about the others? Flavia's her typical charming, precocious, incorrigible self. Perhaps a bit more clever than we've seen her before, definitely with less a sense of self-preservation than we've seen previously. Her sisters are a bit, more human? Or maybe Flavia's portraying them more honestly/more sympathetically. The financial pressures her father's under are more and more pressing, causing everyone to be a bit more realistic, it seems.

Still, that doesn't deter Flavia from doing her thing when a body is discovered. It's everything you want in a Flavia de Luce novel – very, very smart conclusion to this mystery.