Skulduggery Pleasant

A truly genre-busting book best described as comic horror adventure, it introduces an irresistible character, the great Skulduggery Pleasant.

The wise-cracking Skulduggery is urbane, sophisticated and well-dressed. He’s a powerful magician with a particular penchant for fire, a master of dirty tricks and an ace burglar (all for the greater good, of course).

Oh yeah, he’s also dead. He’s got a sidekick too. She’s…..well, she’s called Stephanie and she’s, ahem, she’s a twelve year old girl. With a double-act like this on the case, evil had better beware!

Skulduggery Pleasant is the creation of debut author, Derek Landy, a young Dubliner, whose life was changed forever when HarperCollins signed him up, sparking a chain of foreign rights deals and an explosion of interest at the Bologna Book Fair – and, crucially for Derek – finally putting an end to his days working on the family farm, where he had spent six long dark years.

He had some success writing film scripts before Skulduggery came along. Dead Bodies, for example, is praised and pilloried in equal measure on the internet. Scripts seemed easier than books. After all, they were short, mostly dialogue, and had lots of white space. Books were really, really long and filled with words. Luckily for us, Skulduggery got into Derek’s head and wouldn’t leave him alone. He filled it with all the things Derek liked best – martial arts, super powers, action, magic, horror, mystery, murder and revenge.

Wrapped up in a cracking story and Derek’s deadpan, sardonic line in humour Skulduggery Pleasant is a runaway success before the book is even published.

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Comments:
Rating:	Brilliant! Good OK Not that bad F**king terrible!