Skulduggery Pleasant
"So you won't keep anything from me again?"
He put his hand
to his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
"Okay then. Though you
don't actually have a heart," she said.
"I know."
"And technically,
you've already died."
"I know that too."
"Just so we're clear."
Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction.
Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source – the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard.
When all hell breaks loose, it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead. Though he's about to discover that being a skeleton doesn't stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there's anything Skulduggery hates, it's torture!
Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing's for sure: evil won't know what's hit it.
Derek Landy
In the world of children's fantasy fiction, few characters crash through the pages quite like a wisecracking, sharply dressed skeleton detective—and few authors would dare make that their literary calling card. But Derek Landy did, and in doing so, redefined the limits of what middle grade and teen fantasy could look like.
A former screenwriter from Ireland with a background in martial arts, Landy didn’t arrive in publishing by the usual route. His Skulduggery Pleasant series kicked open the door in 2007 with a swagger, blending fast-paced supernatural action with razor-edged humor and surprisingly tender moments of grief, loyalty, and growth. Readers came for the undead sorcerer; they stayed for Valkyrie Cain, the fierce, flawed teenager at the heart of the story—and for a world that made even apocalypse scenarios feel strangely addictive.
Skulduggery Pleasant
Imagine a world just beneath our own—a world where ancient magic pulses through forgotten alleyways, secret organizations wage silent wars, and the only thing standing between humanity and chaos is a trench-coated skeleton with a razor-sharp wit. That’s the stormy heart of Skulduggery Pleasant, a genre-bending fantasy series that smashes together dark magic, quickfire dialogue, and the kind of world-building that lingers long after the last page.
Skulduggery Pleasant consists of sixteen primary books, and includes four additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads — series is set to expand with the upcoming release of two more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.