Of course, things get more and more complicated as Flavia goes around on her bicycle named Gladys, trying to piece together the mystery of Mr. Harriet has been missing for years now after a skiing accident in the Alps when Flavia was a baby, and the government is bleeding her father financially dry with inheritance taxes, which has caused him to sink into a severe depression' '…His Majesty's Board of Inland Revenue had done to Father what the Empire of Japan had failed to do.

Flavia lived in the west wing, while her father, sister Feeley and Daffy live in the east wing. The de Luce's live in an enormous old manor called Buckshaw, left to Flavia's mother, Harriet. Collicott's murder, things in her own life have become very unstable, and there is a good chance she could lose her beloved first-rate chemistry lab and library left by her Uncle Tar. But who and why would anyone want to kill someone as ordinary as a church organist.Īt the same time that Flavia is working on the mystery of Mr. Collicott, dead and wearing an old wartime gas mask.

Tankred's tomb won't open easily, it is Flavia who is the only one small enough to crawl in to see why it is stuck. When Flavia shows up at the church to investigate the wonky sound in the organ, she arrives just in time for the exhumation. But Feeley has been complaining that the organ has been sounding wonky lately. Naturally, Flavia de Luce, 11, amateur sleuth, is very curious to see the body of the saint when the tomb is open.īut before that happens, the church organist goes missing and Flavia's older sister, Feeley (short for Ophelia) is called in to substitute until he returns. And to celebrate, the saint is going to be exhumed from his tomb. Tankred, their patron saint and the namesake of the villages CofE church, where he is buried. Now, it is about to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the death of St. Speaking From Among the Bones begins in Spring 1951 and the rural English village of Bishop's Lacey is still trying to recover from the war. But I am reviewing it mostly because I am participating in the 2014 Crusin' with the Cozies Reading Challenge and didn't have a true WWII mystery on hand. I have absolutely no real justification for reviewing this book here at The Children's War except that I read it, I loved, I can't believe I waited this long to read a Flavia de Luce novel, and if I really want to push the envelope, I could say it is a nice post-war mystery.

Speaking from among the bones