I Am Half-Sick of Shadows: A Flavia de Luce Novel Hardcover – November 1, 2011

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is the fourth book in Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mystery series. I have read the first three books in this series, and I was excited to find out what was going to happen to Flavia in this book.Flavia de Luce is a precocious young girl who lives with her father and two older sisters in Buckshaw, a crumbling manor house near the village of Bishop’s Lacy. It is the Christmas season, and Flavia’s father has rented out Buckshaw to a film company. Flavia is thrilled about this turn of events, and is even more pleased when Phyllis, the aging actress who is starring in the movie, pays attention to her.Needless to say, it is quite distressing when Phyllis is found murdered immediately after a theatrical performance attended by most of the village. When a blizzard traps everyone in Buckshaw, Flavia comes to the terrible conclusion that there is a murderer amongst the guests!Flavia has a strong personality, and it seems like people either love her or find her obnoxious. I am absolutely enchanted by Flavia. I tend to listen to the Audible editions of her books because narrator Justine Eyre brings Flavia to life with a subtlety sly charm. Flavia is astute, and she is prone to witty asides. This makes her appear much older than eleven years old, but there are parts of the book where Flavia seems exceptionally vulnerable, and very much like the young girl she is supposed to be.This was a satisfying mystery. Unlike the previous three books that had Flavia gallivanting about the countryside, she is mostly confined to Buckshaw for this book. There is a nice mix of new characters to balance out appearances from series regulars like Dogger, the butler/gardener/handyman, as well as Flavia’s two sisters. It was interesting to see “pop culture” (movie star glamour) converge with Flavia’s world of staid gentility (not to mention the genteel poverty).I would recommend I Am Half-Sick of Shadows. I would suggest reading the series in order. Flavia is an absolute delight, and as much as I enjoy the sleuthing, I would be just as happy reading about Flavia’s everyday adventures. I already own the next couple of books in this series, but I have been rationing them out; this is one series I do not want to get to the end of!

Why can't Amazon post a simple list of an author's titles in order of publication? If you discover an author, you might like to read them in the order they were written, to appreciate the characters' (and the author's) development. Here's the list of Alan Bradley's charming, scary, funny Flavia de Luce Novels, as of December 2014.Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels in order:1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, 1/20102. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, 2/20113. A Red Herring Without Mustard, 10/20114. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, 10/20125. Speaking from Among the Bones, 12/20136. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, 1/20147. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, 1/2015Enjoy!

I think this may be my favorite so far in the series and I have a feeling it is only going to get better. I am partial to Christmas so that helped. The series has progressed far enough that old friends can now return making the world richer. Interesting developments are on the horizon on Dogger's past and the relationship between the sisters. The case itself was interesting and I always like to see how Flavia and the Inspector come to the same conclusion from such different paths and sets of information.

Unlike the previous three, this story deals more with Flavia and her interactions with the people around her, particularly her family, and not so much on the solving of the mystery. Although Flavia isn't about to let her family dynamics get in the way of some clever sleuthing. With her usual flair and boldness, she goes about "assisting" the local constabulary - much to their dismay. Flavia has a delightful and heart-breaking mix of maturity and innocence. She is growing up, and has many truths about life to face, which as a reader and adult, I both dread and look forward to seeing her mature. The mystery of her mother, and the past of her family got even more tangled and twisted. Like the previous three, I listened to this via Audiobook, read by the incomparable Jane Entwistle. Entwistle gives such a lively voice to Flavia, It's enchanting to listen to her speak the story. I highly recommend this story, either by book or audiobook.

Tis the season for murder and mayhem and what better stage than at Buckshaw...the home of the tenacious 11yr old...Flavia de Luce.Colonel de Luce has been in dire need of a financial boost in order to sustain the family home. The answer comes in the form of a movie...one that will be filmed at Buckshaw. To Flavia and her sisters' delight the famous actress Phyllis Wyvern is to star in said movie and stay in their home during the making.When Phyllis is found murdered, Flavia is back to her busy body antics trying to solve the mystery. Can she figure out the culprit in time to save the holiday spirit?I adore Flavia and this is my favorite of the series so far. She is such an amazing little girl and I love everything about her and this series.

With the family finances in their usual perilous position, Flavia's father has given over Buckshaw to a film crew at Christmas. Previously wrapped up in plans to trap Father Christmas, Flavia turns her attention to the newcomers and befriends the famous actress, Phyllis Wyvern.The vicar managed to convince Phyllis to give a performance of "Romeo and Juliet," for the benefit of the Church roof and, later that night, Flavia discovers the actresses dead body and, of course, sets out to discover the murderer with virtually the entire local population snowed in under the family battlements.It was odd to have all of the story under the roof of Buckshaw and not have Flavia, astride her trusty bicycle, heading out all over the countryside. Like many such series books, the fun in this one is in the characters. Although I am not usually a fan of mysteries with precocious children, I do like Flavia, her constant preoccupation with chemistry and her independent spirit. Odd to read a Christmas mystery in summer, so this may be one I wish to revisit at a more appropriate time of year.

What a delightful series!. 11 year old Flavia de Luce, chemistry genius and enfant terrible. She lives with her father and sisters in n enormous country estate which is continuously under threat as her father cannot maintain it. Bodies and blood but not in the depressing sex and serial-killer manner of current fiction. Although Flavia is scarily intelligent, she also has a childish innocence (she is not sure about about the existence of Santa Claus and has come up with a wonderful concoction to trap him in a chimney), this may not be creditable for today's 11 year old but this is 1950. There is a great cast of characters including Dogger the general factotum, who is extremely well educated and suffers from post traumatic stress following incarceration in a POW camp, the vicar's dreadful wife who spanked Flavia with a hymn book (wouldn't happen today!), Inspecter Hewitt and lovely wife Antigone (much admired by Flavia) and of course Flavia's sisters who never lose an opportunity to put her down.

I LOVED this book. It took a while to get used to Flavia’s incredibly idiosyncratic voice and turn of phrase, but once I did, it was the best thing about the book. It reminded me of how the Famous Five spoke to each other, but smarter! This is the first book I've read in the series. If I’d started the series at book 1, I’m sure I would have already been at home with her voice and not needed this “adjustment time”. That said, this book worked as a stand-alone, I fell in love with Flavia and by the end was incredibly sorry it was all over.The mystery element of the story was good, if nothing new (all the suspects trapped in a big house because of unexpected heavy snow… we’ve never seen that before!). The setting was excellent and the set up interesting. The film crew and actors brought some old Hollywood glamour to the story. But the star of the show is Flavia, her love of chemistry and her rather “inventive” experiments. These include an attempt to prove the existence of Father Christmas by covering the chimney stacks in bird lime in the hope of trapping him there! Brilliant!

This is the fourth in the Flavia de Luce series, another wonderfully endearing "cozy mystery" set "somewhere" in England in the 1950s. I absolutely love this series, they're the perfect antidote to the stresses of modern life with one of the most captivating heroines in the shape of 11 year old Flavia.It's getting close to Christmas and the de Luce family finances are still in a perilous state so the Colonel reluctantly agrees to rent out Buckshaw to a film crew. The glamorous film star Phyllis Wyvern has agreed to perform a scene from Shakespeare in order to raise funds for the church roof, so the local villagers swarm to Buckshaw to see the leading lady in action. Blizzards conspire to keep the audience captive overnight but tis not the season to be jolly as a body is discovered and, with so many suspects, Inspector Hewitt needs all the help he can get to find the killer. Of course, Flavia, our amateur sleuth, is on hand to ferret out the culprit but she is already occupied with proving Santa's existence and concocting some splendiferous fireworks.If you are already a fan of Flavia, you will love this seasonal story as you are immediately transported into the snowbound world of Buckshaw and Bishop's Lacey. Flavia is as irrepressible as ever but she still has that cloud of sadness, the loss of her mother and her sisters' indifference/cruelty weigh heavily on her. Some much needed distraction comes with the arrival of the film crew and the glamour of the silver screen. There are a lot of new characters in this relatively short book but they really come to life for the reader, even the one who dies quite soon!Overall, a pleasure to read, an ideal Christmas treat which leaves me longing for the next instalment in Flavia's adventures, Seeds of Antiquity, hopefully out in 2012.

I do like a bit of light-hearted stuff among all the serious books I read! This is the first novel that I've read of the Flavia de Luce series, and I'm absolutely hooked. It's set in rural England in the 1950s. Flavia, aged 11, amateur sleuth, precocious amateur chemist and expert on poisons, is a wonderful character. She lives with her father, two unsympathetic sisters, a house-keeper and her father's batman 'Dogger', in a large house, which is falling apart due to the fact that its owner, Flavia's mother Harriet, has disappeared in Tibet without leaving a will.It's a totally dysfunctional family, and a totally off-the-wall plot. Desperate for money to keep the old pile, and the family, from complete ruin, Colonel de Luce has rented the house out to a film crew just before Christmas. Mayhem, madness and a huge quantity of snow descend overnight, locking everyone indoors just in time for a grisly murder. And Flavia, being Flavia, is first on the scene.This is a YA book for adults and I'm definitely going to seek out the others - including the new one just out, called  Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia De Luce Mystery 5) . It reminds me of the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency - the same sense of humour and gentle escapism.Alan Bradley, like Alexander McCall Smith, is not a young author - born in 1938 - and didn't begin the Flavia de Luce stories until 2006, when he wrote the beginning of a story for the Crime Dagger Debut prize and found that he'd won! It only goes to show....... Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia De Luce Mystery 5)