THE DEAD IN THEIR VAULTED ARCHES (Alan Bradley)

Oh, Flavia De Luce, you just get better and better!  At the end of Bradley's last novel in this wonderful series, Flavia's father announced that her mother, Harriet, who had disappeared in the Himalayas 10 years earlier, had been found.  Of course we have all been waiting breathlessly for this next installment!  Bradley has made the wise (but a little sad) decision that life must go on, and it appears that Flavia will not always remain the amazing 11-year-old detective and chemist that we have come to know and love.  She will soon be 12 and life is becoming a more serious proposition, especially now that Harriet has been found.  When cousin Lena descends on Buckshaw, the crumbling family estate, with her precocious (and weird) daughter Undine, it appears that Flavia may have acquired an apprentice in her sleuthing.  Time will tell!

As the family waits at the station for the train bearing Harriet back to Bishop's Lacey, a stranger whispers a message in Flavia's ear.  Moments later he mysteriously falls under a train and is killed.  Was he pushed or was it an accident?  What did his cryptic message mean?  Flavia is intrigued when she discovers and restores an old home film in which her mother appears to be saying "pheasant sandwiches," the same phrase whispered to her by the dead man.  And why was Winston Churchill there to welcome Harriet home?  For the answers to all of these questions, read this book!  Bradley has written another winner here.  The intrigue, the characters, and the atmosphere get better and better with each novel.  I can't wait for the next one!