The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

Today will be one of the best and worst days of any fan of Alan Bradley. It is the best because his new book, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, is AWESOME. It is the worst because now we have to wait for him to write the next one. Waiting is not my happy place. But enough complaining! This is what you can enjoy now...

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches is the sixth book in his Flavia de Luce series. Flavia is not a typical eleven year-old. She and her eccentric family live at Buckshaw, her family's ancestral but crumbling estate. The title to the property is in her mother's name, but she disappeared in the Himalayas a decade before. She left no will, and the taxes are financially killing the de Luces. But now Flavia's mother is returning to Buckshaw, and she brings mystery and mayhem with her. I can't say much more without spoiling it, but I can say it involves a dead stranger, Winston Churchill, MI5 and plenty of red herrings.

Alan Bradley has me flummoxed. With every new book that he writes about Flavia de Luce, I become more amazed that a late-middle-aged man from Canada can write so brilliantly about an eleven-year-old-chemist-savant-detective-girl from the 1950's English countryside. It is a beautiful mystery, but luckily one that doesn't need to be solved, just enjoyed.

TBC