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
Derek Landy (born 1973) lives near Dublin, Ireland. Before writing his children's story about a sharply dressed skeleton detective, he wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a slasher thriller in which everybody dies. As a black belt in Kenpo Karate, he has taught countless children how to defend themselves, in the hopes of building his own private munchkin army. He firmly believes that they await his call to strike against his enemies (he doesn't actually have any enemies, but he's assuming they'll show up sooner or later). The reason Derek writes his own biographical blurb is so that he can finally refer to himself in the third person without looking pompous or insane.
Skulduggery Pleasant
The novels in this young adult dark fantasy series cross the horror, comedy, mystery, and fantasy genres.
Skulduggery Pleasant consists of sixteen primary books, and includes four additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads, and the series is set to expand with the upcoming release of two more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.