Skulduggery Pleasant

Name: Serina

Grade: College

Title: Skulduggery Pleasant

Author: Derek Landy

Skulduggery Pleasant is the suavest, smooth-talking detective to ever walk the earth. He also is an ancient wizard that has been fighting a secret war for generations against evil sorcerers that are trying to throw the world into chaos and rule it with an iron fist. Oh yeah, and he's dead...

When twelve-year-old Stephanie Edgley's novelist uncle dies, he leaves her his mansion and all his possessions, including some rather dangerous ones that have magical properties. At the reading of her uncle's will, a mysterious man was invited. Called Skulduggery Pleasant, he wore a large coat and concealed his face with a hat and sunglasses, but he had the most beautiful voice that she has ever heard. Later, while staying at her uncle's home, which has not suddenly become hers, Stephanie is attacked by a strange man, demanding to know where the 'key' is. When things become dire and Stephanie is not able to escape, the man in the coat from the will reading barges in and, to Stephanie's amazement, creates a fireball in his gloved hand and shoots it at her attacker, driving him away. However, in the scuffle, Skulduggery loses his hat and sunglasses, giving Stephanie an even greater shock. Skulduggery Pleasant is a walking skeleton.

From there on, Stephanie is dragged into an ancient battle that has been going on behind humanity's back for hundreds of years. Skulduggery died during the war, but could not move on. So, with a bit of magic, he reanimated his bones and has been walking around since. Skulduggery believes that one particularly bad sorcerer is after something said to only exist in myth, the Scepter of the Ancients. He also believes that Stephanie's uncle was murdered.

In an attempt to escape her boring life, Stephanie accompanies Skulduggery on his quest to avenge her uncle's murder and to stop the evil sorcerer called Nefarian Serpine, even though he is not very willing to have her along. But what's a skeleton to do?

I picked this book up because it had an awesome cover.

I finished this book because it was fun and interesting.

Rating: ****