Review of Skulduggery Pleasant

The Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy is an ongoing Irish book series. Books one through five have been released, although five is still only available in Ireland (unless imported). Being a huge fan of the series so far, I ordered books four and five from Ireland. I’m a book lover, sue me.

Overall, the series has a fast pace with razor sharp wit and quick dialogue. Landy previously wrote screenplays for movies, and it shows. Heavy in dialogue and fast in speed, the whole thing really feels like a printed movie. Also, the characters in the series are really something to be mentioned. Each unique and complex,the characters in this series seem to struggle and grow as the series continues. The main character, Stephanie Edgley, starts off as a normal teenage girl. Obviously, it doesn’t stay that way for long or we’d be left with a Twilight clone. When Stephanie’s uncle suddenly dies, for seemingly natural reasons, no one questions it. Except for the tall, thin man with the frizzy hair, large floppy hat, scarf, sunglasses, and pinstripe suit…

The man, who introduces himself as Skulduggery Pleasant, takes Stephanie under his wing when he saves her from a magical assault. We learn that Skulduggery is a magical detective, who favors a fireball to his Colt .45, investigating the untimely and suspicious death of Stephanie’s uncle. We then learn of the Faceless Ones–old gods exiled from the earth long ago–who in older times spent the better part of their existence torturing the other earthly inhabitants. These early humans were very powerful mages and were known as the Ancients. The Ancients, not being too fond of the endless torture, decide to create and use a deadly weapon to banish the Faceless Ones.

Using what they called the Scepter of the Ancients, they exiled the Faceless Ones to another dimension, far from their own. Stephanie, as it happens, is related to the Ancients and is one of the few alive with Ancient blood in her veins, which makes her a big target for the baddies. In addition, Skulduggery’s old nemeses is looking for the Scepter of the Ancients to bring the Faceless Ones back to earth. A good part of the series revolves around the exploits of the Faceless Ones’ cult following and their desire to bring them back to the planet. I don’t want to spoil anything, but eventually this plotline ends, to be replaced with more later on.

The very interesting and engaging thing about this series is that each book has a unique conflict that introduces more and more characters. As the series continues, the enemies eventually merge into something of a super-plot. It’s interesting to see how each of them has tried and failed to foil the arcane detectives and brings new expertise and experience to the team, making it a much more potent and threatening force. This series is all together well written. It has witty, quick dialogue, complex, evolving characters, and magic! Who doesn’t like magic? The crossover between magic and detective work has been done a few times before, but not quite like this.

Landy’s sharp wit and action-oriented writing style gives this series something that sets it apart from others similar to it. The character development in these books really makes you sympathize with them, even the bad guys sometimes. Everyone seems to have motives that are real and visceral, on a human level, even though many of them don’t have a shred of human in them. If you’re a fan of fireball-throwing mystics, gun-toting, hard-boiled detectives, and sharp, witty dialogue and narration, check out Skulduggery Pleasant–Book One: Scepter of the Ancients!