In book five of the Flavia De Luce series, the Tomb of Saint Tancred will be opened for the 500th anniversary of the Saint’s death. Meanwhile, a different body is discovered in the tomb. While Flavia busies herself with this mystery, there are some developments within her family circle that she must also contend with. ( )

Loved it. I wish reviewer's would stop referring to these as cozy's, I don't think they qualify.
A child character that is not obnoxious or ovrly cutesy is tough, but Bradley gets it just right. Real bombshell at the end ( )

audio mystery/historical fiction, #5 in series(10 hours)

this is actually a re-read but it's hard not to enjoy Jayne Entwistle's narration of 11 y.o. Flavia, scarcely containing her glee over all things chemistry and murder. #5 in the series takes place in the spring (overlapping Easter) of 1951 England, just as Ophelia announces her engagement to Dieter, and Flavia adopts her pet chicken Esmeralda. ( )

Fifth in the Flavia de Luce series, this opens with the impending opening of the tomb of the local saint in the church crypt. Flavia manages to be present, thrilled as ever to view a body - except the one first encountered is that of the local organist who had supposed left the village in mysterious circumstances. It turns out, he didn't - he was murdered, rather grotesquely. So Flavia is off on another investigation, and this time she has a couple of rivals, a visiting private detective-botany expert, and a rather odd soprano with bottle-end glasses.

The twists and turns are considerable in this story, and a lot of subplots are introduced, some of which are left hanging, most obviously that of Jocelyn, the congenitally damaged son of a local magistrate, who lives an existence shut away from the world, but who, it turns out, was visited by Flavia's mother Harriet, who was lost in the Himalayas years ago. And the ongoing story of the de Luce money problems escalates when their grand house is put up for sale. Now Flavia has the worry of what will happen to her family, not to mention her father's manservant, Dogger, who is a mainstay in Flavia's life given her cold and distant father and sadistic sisters, plus the impending loss of her fully equipped chem lab and her bicycle Gladys, which she endows with an engaging personality. And the book ends with an unexpected cliffhanger.

The only thing that kept this back from a 5 star rating for me was that there was a bit of meandering with the various cast and their machinations, plus one sequence in the middle involving double doors which, despite two careful re-reads just didn't make sense: how could a door bolted from the inside be opened by a key from the outside? But other than that, there was a lot to enjoy, as ever. ( )

I think this one was a bit too long for my taste, or else the whole Flavia thing is wearing thin. Still the same writing and characters, but I was hoping for it to be over. Somehow I found her to be a bit pretentious in this book. Some interesting developments pop up right at the end, though, and I'm stuck reading the next one just to see how it all works out.... ( )