“The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches”, by Alan Bradley

 

336 pages, Bantam Books, ISBN-13: 978-0385344050

At the end of Speaking From Among the Bones, the fifth installment of the Flavia de Luce mysteries, we learned that the long-lost matriarch of the de Luces, Harriet, had been found and was coming home – but not, as one would have hoped, alive. Her body having been discovered at the bottom of the Himalayan crevasse that she fell into a decade before, we find at the beginning of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches the entire clan – the father Havilland, his daughters Ophelia, Daphne and (or course) Flavia, Aunt Felicity, and even cousins Lena and her daughter Undine de Luce from Cornwall – as well as denizens from their household and Bishop’s Lacey awaiting her return. Upon the train’s arrival, Flavia is approached by a tall stranger who whispers a cryptic message into her ear – and who, moments later, “falls” beneath the wheels of the train but, this being a story starring England’s answer to Nancy Drew, we all know he didn’t fall, don’t we? Oh, and Winston Churchill is also there, asking Flavia about “pheasant sandwiches”.

And so The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches gets going right away, but the bulk of the tale is not directed towards the death of the stranger, but rather by the upcoming and long-delayed funeral of Harriet de Luce and the mystery of her life. This is peculiar, to say the least, and the death of the stranger only gets mentioned here and there as the funeral arrangements and the de Luces reactions to the same move forward – oh, and as Flavia attempts the resurrection of her mother via chemistry. I kid you not. But this book is more than all that, for Flavia, while following a trail of clues sparked by the discovery of a reel of film stashed away in the attic, manages to unravel her family’s deepest, darkest secrets – which involve certain organs of the British government. So there’s a lot going on in this book that has nothing to do with the apparent main murder from the beginning and which promises some interesting developments in the lives of the de Luces – with Flavia being affected most of all, as one would expect.

Flavia herself, the 11-soon-to-be-12-year-old heroine and sleuth is, as usual, a joy in this book, and all of these mysteries should be saved and savored in one’s own bleak moments. But there are…issues with this latest instalment. Without spoilers, Bradley completely reverses course and has Flavia embark on her utterly bizarre mission to bring her mother back to life while apparently enlisting otherwise reasonable adults as accomplices (it put me in mind of her quest to capture Santa Claus in I Am Half-Sick of Shadows). Furthermore, after the “life or death” message is passed from a stranger on a train platform to Flavia in the first few pages, she does not deliver said message until far into the book as she forges ahead with her plan – a plan that she abandons without any hullabaloo when mysterious men from the Home Office appear. All rather confusing and not a little disappointing, and if it were not for Flavia’s observations and inner monologue it would have been infuriating. But I can’t hate on the girl, ever.

Overall I found that The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches lacked much of the drama of many of the past titles, and frankly wasn’t as interesting or humorous as many of the prior books. However, upon completion, I think that the purpose of this book became obvious: it serves as a transitional piece, taking Flavia’s story in a brand-new direction, and for this reason Bradley should be applauded (it reads rather like the second, bridge book of a trilogy, in which the purpose is to set up the last book or, in this case, future books). After all, there’s only so much murder and mayhem that can take place around Buckshaw and Bishop’s Lacey, so it will be nice to see that we’ll soon get a change of scenery for our favorite preteen detective, and that Flavia’s role in the world is about to transform. As to what will happen to the other characters in Flavia’s life, I can only hope that they will make appearances in future books. I, for one, look forward to the next adventure with interest which I would not have had the author just offered us more of the same.

It’s easy to see from this novel where the setting for the next one will start, but all the same I wonder where will it take us? Will we eventually get to see this fearless child as a grown woman? And just what kind of a woman will she grow up to be? The stage is being set.