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Many thanks to NetGalley for providing this review copy in exchange for this review.

This 7th outing of Flavia De Luce’s adventures is so much better than the last few have been. I was growing so weary of the same old thing that I skipped #6, [easyazon_link asin=”0385344066″ locale=”US” new_window=”default” nofollow=”default” tag=”gimmethatbook-20″ add_to_cart=”no” cloaking=”default” localization=”yes” popups=”yes”]The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches[/easyazon_link]. To me, the plots were becoming rote: body, murder, adventure, droll humor, ending.

Now I regret not reading book #6 only because I feel like I missed a turning point. Chemistry loving Flavia is growing up, and the series is fresh again. The setting is new, the characters are new, and we are seeing a new side of Ms De Luce as well.

Flavia has been sent to a girls’ boarding school in Canada, which was noted in the ending of book #6. She is to become a member of an organization called the Nide, following in the footsteps of her mother, who is revered as a goddess at Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy. On Flavia’s first night there, a body falls out of a chimney, and wham! shes off working on another murder. She is very homesick, and references are made to the Buckshaw clan only via our heroine’s thoughts.

There is a lot of interaction between Flavia and the other students, and I found the conversations to be razor sharp and fun to read. The condescending tones which the adults use to interact with Flavia are gone, and it seems that everyone is treated more or less, as an equal. Of course, there is the caste system found in all schools, but since this is a classroom that is supposedly turning women into spies or the like, everyone is assumed to be intelligent and well-spoken.

I loved the whole tone of this book! The only problem I had is that it seemed that the plot was going in circles, with tiny plotlets added to round out her experience at school. Even though the conversations with her peers were scintillating, it seems that much of the content had to be read between the lines, and that got to be exhausting.  By the time the murder was solved I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Is Flavia IN the Nide? Was the ending happy or sad? It seemed to me that the secret society was like Fight Club–don’t talk about it. This vagueness was the only thing that bothered me. Otherwise, you will see Flavia maturing and coming to terms with new emotions, with flashes of the egotistical mad chemist here and there.

Bradley has given me new faith in this series, and I will go back to read #6. For those who have been following our girl all along–you will like this, as long as you don’t expect to be reading about Daffy, Feely, Dogger, and Bishop’s Lacey. This was a refreshing break; a cleansing of the palate. As Flavia would say, it was a “jolly good” read.

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