Our story begins when Stephanie's eccentric Uncle Gordon dies and sheunexpectedly inherits his home. When she decides to spend the night alone inher Uncles home she is cast into an unknown world of danger when a strangeman breaks in and she is saved by the skeleton detective Skulduggery Pleasant. From there she makes the choice to delve deeper and deeper intothe world of magic and she soon realizes how very fragile the nature ofpeace in her world depends on the on going peace in the magical world.Unfortunately a plotting sorcerer intends to end the truce between good andevil and free the Faceless Ones, God's of a ruthless nature, to create aworld better suited to his dark ways. A handful of strange and interesting characters stand in his way as he forms his army and Stephanie soon discovers that her place in the world of magic is far greater then she could have ever known.

This is an introductory novel which seems a bit slow in some parts in orderto make your acquaintance with the series characters and to explain specific plot background stories that you will need to know in order to understandthe book as it moves along. Author Derek Landy does well to give you just enough but not stretch the plot so far that surprises are lost on the next chapter of the series. As I read along I couldn't help but get the feeling that Landy might very well have read too much of Mike Mognola's Hellboy. Both feature wisecracking supernatural detectives and both are loaded withboth a sense of dramatics and action. Unlike the formula of most young adult books there is no orphaned children, there is no goofy bumbling villain, and there is no room for cute here. Landy is very good at keeping the humor at a facetious tone and in very low doses so as not to bog down the story and action as well as making sure the overall works remain in Young Adult reading while bordering bearable for adults.

Skulduggery Pleasant is rumored to be set to expand into a 9 volume series.Warner Brothers is also rumored to be in the works to bring Skulduggery Pleasent in as the new young adult series to see a film adaptation after the final Harry Potter film hit's the big screen. Visit the Skulduggery Pleasant website for info, games, wallpaper, ringtones, and more: http://www.skulduggerypleasant.com/

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