I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Alan Bradley

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bradley, C. Alan

I am half-sick of shadows: a Flavia de Luce novel / Alan Bradley.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53215-2

1. Girls—England—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

3. Actresses—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Motion pictures—

Production and direction—Fiction.

I. Title.

PR9199.4.B7324I15 2011

813′.6—dc22

2011022373

www.bantamdell.com

Case design: Joe Montgomery

Case art: Ben Perini

v3.1

 … She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirrored magic sights,

For often through the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights,

And music, went to Camelot;

Or, when the moon was overhead,

Came two young lovers lately wed.

“I am half-sick of shadows,” said

The Lady of Shalott.