Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

One of my favourite children and young adult writers working today is Jonathan Stroud who gave life to what is possibly the funniest djinni ever birthed in fiction (sorry, Robin Williams). This is not the first time I have heaped love onto the Bartimaeus sequence of books and if you haven't read them - well, what are you waiting for?

While the titular indentured djinni is certainly the most memorable element of the Bartimaeus books, what really sold the original trilogy is Stroud's vision of a dystopian London run by scheming magician-politicians who enslave spirits and tyrannises non-magic commoners. Bartimaeus' London is simultaneously familiar yet coloured in every way imaginable by its magocratic upper class. There were high end shops in Piccadilly that supply sorcerous artifacts to London's elites. The British Museum contains magical antiques (stolen from foreign cultures, much like the real British Museum) and the mummified remains of Bartimaeus' former employers. Tombs of Britain's most famous sons and daughters in Westminster Abbey are cursed and guarded by powerful spirits to discourage looters. Stroud's immense talent at world-building - or world-tweaking, really - also permeates every pen-stroke in The Screaming Staircase where he introduces us to yet another vision of London slightly askew.

Lockwood & Co. is one of Britain's many enterprising agencies that had sprung up in the wake of the Problem - which is a typically English way of understating an epidemic of ghosts and hauntings spreading all across the British Isles. Suddenly, the spirits of the dead refuse to stay dead, and some categories of these spooks can hurt or even kill the living, either directly or otherwise. Employing children and teenagers with the psychic ability to sense ghosts, these agencies provide the increasingly valuable service of dealing with hauntings to the public. Stroud then layered this basic premise with commonsensical extensions of the concept by also introducing us to the corporate rivalry between these agencies, governmental offices which regulate them and perform research into psychic phenomena, and the economical microverse that revolves around ghostbusting like the iron and silver industries, lavender horticulturists and purveyors of good tea bags (preferentially by the Pitkin Brothers of Bond Street). If anything, Stroud had gotten much better at reimagining London since Bartimaeus.

The Screaming Staircase is narrated by Lucy Carlyle, a young agent of exceptional talent who joined Lockwood & Co., an agency operating completely without adult supervision. Anthony Lockwood runs it, in Sherlockian fashion, from his residence at Number 35, Portland Street and through the course of The Screaming Staircase, proved to be an able understudy of the Baker Street sleuth. Anthony Lockwood intends to elevate Lockwood & Co. to be the number one agency in London and isn't above endangering his associates to achieve it. His deputy, George Cubbins, provides most of the comic relief in the book and is best described as the overweight, flatulent, male slob equivalent of Hermione Granger of the Harry Potter books and much like her, he approaches every problem by reading and researching the hell out of it.

Reminiscent of the taxonomy of summonable spirits in the Bartimaeus books, Lockwood & Co. categorises ghosts into Type Ones to Threes, in an order of increasing intelligence, autonomy and malevolence. Within those Types are various species of spirits ranging from Cold Maidens to Poltergeists to Phantasms, and they are grouped according to their behaviour and abilities. Unlike the ghosts in Potterverse, the Visitors (as they are euphemistically called) imagined by Stroud are of the horror film variety: creepy, mindless and often violently murderous. Stroud clearly intends to scare his readers with them.

Like the Bartimaeus Sequence, The Screaming Staircase is a breezy read - I finished it in a day and found myself hungering for the sequel. I could tell that Stroud already had the mytharc of the series down pat, and the grand architecture of it loomed ominously over the events of the first book. What is the Problem and what is causing it? I NEED TO KNOW! I guess I'll just have to wait for next year for the provisionally titled second book, The Whispering Skull. to be published. If George R. R. Martin manages to deliver The Winds of Winter next year as well, it would make 2014 a really good year indeed.

I recommend The Screaming Staircase to just about anyone at all. It doesn't matter who you are, how old you are or that you don't even necessarily enjoy reading for leisure at all. Stroud always know how to show everyone an enchantingly good time.

Jonathan Stroud is one of my favorite current writers, and he doesn't disappoint with his first Lockwood & Co. book. It's funny, engaging, and just the right amount of spooky. Can't wait until the next one comes out.

Finally, Jonathan Stroud has begun a series that promises to be as much fun as the Bartameus trilogy! Lookwood & Co. is funny - perhaps more in a wry way than laugh-out-loud - but definitely entertaining. The characters are exceptionally realized, particularly our sympathetic but not Mary Sue-ish protagonist, and the world that Stroud creates operates within the logical parameters that he's defined, which is something I appreciate when dealing with fantastical elements. Most importantly - it's spooky, even scary, which is rare to find in YA books about the supernatural these days. Lots of elements to appeal to young readers, but adults who appreciate intelligent, fun fiction will love it as well.

In short, this is an awesome new series that features Stroud's trademark dark humor and excellent storytelling. If you love Bartimaeus then you're going to love Lockwood. The characters are interesting and relateable. Lockwood is like a young sherlock type, cocky and quick witted. It's a fun cast with compelling action and horror. I mean, there are some hair raising situations here...more so than Bartimaeus...you really have a sense of danger here. Awesome and fun. Don't miss it!

If you like the Bartimaeus trilogy, you'll enjoy this. I like my paranormal YA with a bit of humor. This hits the mark on that point. Stroud has excellent pacing and introduces just enough to keep the mystery going. I would definitely recommend this and can't wait for the next book.

After the Bartimaeus books, I was really looking forward to the next thing Mr. Stroud was going to put out. This repartee between characters is not written as witty as the Bart books but I did enjoy the story line and look forward to the next book in the series.

Having read (and thoroughly enjoyed Stroud's Bartimaeus series, I was very interested in this series as well. It's much lighter fare than Bartimaeus and, I felt, not as engaging. I'm definitely open to reading the next one.

I couldn't finish this book. I always finish books no matter if it drags on for days...just Could.Not.Finish. I tried, but I didn't realize when it was recommended by a friend that it would be juvenile. I LOVE paranormal books, this one was not my cup of tea.

4 stars!

“Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up.”

Who knew a middle grade novel could be TERRIFYING! It took me a while to get through this book because I was too scared to read it at night!

The Screaming Staircase takes place in England, where an epidemic of ghosts has covered the country with people taking extra precautions to keep them away. Since younger people have better abilities to see and sense them, they are the front of the army against this supernatural issue.

Lucy has the gift of hearing ghosts and is excellent at what she does. She joins the Lockwood and Company, a small ghost hunting agency run by Anthony Lockwood with another boy named George. The three of them work to rid the world of ghosts, one haunting at a time….

“Really?"
"No. I'm being ironic. Or is it sarcastic? I can never remember."
"Irony's cleverer, so you're probably being sarcastic.”

I’ve had several people recommend me this book and I’ve always meant to get to it. I am very glad I finally did and tried a new to me author, because this book is excellent. It’s like Supernatural for tweens, but in England and with a female lead character. I love the concept of younger adults being placed into adult situations because they are the only ones who can help.

As I mentioned before, this book was fairly scary. So much so that after finishing it I needed to watch rom coms to get me out of my frightened glow. Stroud is a compelling and excellent writer and I am definitely going to be reading the other books in this series soon.

“Well, when you're being held at gunpoint by a geriatric madman in a metal skirt, you've kind of hit rock bottom anyway. It can't really get much worse.”

There are lots of YA Sherlock Holmes knockoffs - Young Sherlock, Sherlock Jr., Sherlock and Watson - the Musical!. But they are often weighed down by the need to conform to the Holmes canon, shoehorning themselves into the already received Holmes world. This book takes on a Holmesian vibe, but otherwise moves in its own world.

Our hero, Lockwood, is clever, restrained, bemused by what he observes, and stern. Our narrator, Lucy, is his Watson, and both faithfully reports the action and comes up strong at all the right moments. The third member of the team, George, is something of a third wheel in this first book, and feels more like a Mrs. Hudson. The upshot is that this is a team that a reader could follow from adventure to adventure and book to book, without ever tiring of their personalities, their style, and their easy camaraderie.

On top of all that, these characters operate in a beautifully and imaginatively conceived world of ghosts and ghost eliminators. Stroud doesn't huff and puff building this world that exists after the arising of "The Problem", an influx of restless and dangerous ghosts. He just sets the world spinning and fills us in and elaborates as the story requires. This alternate world becomes both exotic and perfectly natural, and there is no sense that it has been in any fashion "created". It seems no more foreign or unnatural than does any "Victorian" era mystery.

And the ghosts have style and presence and character. No mere wisps, they have weight and presence. The ghost hunters engage in high adventure, but we also learn the more mundane details of preparing for a mission. In that the books are reminiscent of the Spook's Apprentice books, that entailed both high drama and the workaday aspects of spook hunting. I enjoyed that groundedness.

On top of all that, there is a good deal of humor. Lockwood is a master of the deadpan throwaway line, and all of the characters can deliver, or take, a sly insult or jibe or passing amusing observation. The humor here is witty, knowing, and restrained, which is how I like my adventurers.

The upshot is that this is a richly imagined, nicely plotted, and briskly paced adventure featuring appealing heroes and interesting villains. Can't ask for much more than that.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Reader thoughts:
I don't usually read many books about ghosts or undead. This was an interesting story to me anyway. I liked the rules, the history of Visitors, and the characters.

Seeing ghosts, getting ghost-touched, and banishing ghosts (or neutralizing the source) seemed more scientific than spiritual, which is probably why I enjoyed it. It followed Sanderson's first law of magic, that a reader will need to understand a magic system in order for the author to use it to solve problems. In this book, the characters measured temperature, listened for howlings, watched for glows, and used iron to neutralize whatever object the Visitors were attached to. There were type 1 and type 2 ghosts depending on strength. There were other categories, too, like poltergeist (can move small, non-iron objects) and changers (can alter shape, size, and appearance).

I liked the speculation around why Visitors were so dangerous now and hadn't been before. What changed? This will be the over-arching plot that Stroud has barely introduced.

Lockwood wasn't as clever as he seemed because he should have just told Lucy and George what he had learned. George was okay, but he was too moody for me. At least Lucy was nice, but she didn't seem to have much personality. These characters got along fairly well in this book with minor squabbles, but I hope to see more variation in them in the next book.

The climax seemed a bit short. Maybe it just didn't have much foreshadowing to indicate anything special about the well.

Writer thoughts:
Stroud used well-placed scenes to emphasize different conflicts. Like, Lucy and Lockwood forgot their chains in the first job of the book, and George is more prepared. Later, both Lucy and Lockwood sleep without their rapiers, whereas George has his in his bedroom. This drives the character development as Lucy and Lockwood learn to appreciate George's research and preparations.

Also, Lucy receives hints of feelings/thoughts from the first ghost. Then she gets more impressions from the hanging tree ghost. Then, when she hears full sentences toward the end, it doesn't come as a surprise to the reader, because Stroud prepared the reader for that progression.

Falling too fast to prepare for this
Tripping in the world could be dangerous
Everybody circling, it's vulturous
Negative, nepotist
Everybody waiting for the fall of man
Everybody praying for the end of times
Everybody hoping they could be the one
I was born to run, I was born for this
Whip, whip
Run me like a racehorse
Pull me like a ripcord
Break me down and build me up
I wanna be the slip, slip
Word upon your lip, lip
Letter that you rip, rip
Break me down and build me up
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do whatever it takes
'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains
Whatever it takes
You take me to the top I'm ready for
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do what it takes
Always had a fear of being typical
Looking at my body feeling miserable
Always hanging on to the visual
I wanna be invisible
Looking at my years like a martyrdom
Everybody needs to be a part of 'em
Never be enough, I'm the prodigal son
I was born to run, I was born for this
Whip, whip
Run me like a racehorse
Pull me like a ripcord
Break me down and build me up
I wanna be the slip, slip
Word upon your lip, lip
Letter that you rip, rip
Break me down and build me up
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do whatever it takes
'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains
Whatever it takes
You take me to the top, I'm ready for
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do what it takes
Hypocritical, egotistical
Don't wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical
Working onto something that I'm proud of, out of the box
An epoxy to the world and the vision we've lost
I'm an apostrophe
I'm just a symbol to remind you that there's more to see
I'm just a product of the system, a catastrophe
And yet a masterpiece, and yet I'm half-diseased
And when I am deceased
At least I go down to the grave and die happily
Leave the body and my soul to be a part of thee
I do what it takes
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do whatever it takes
'Cause I love how it feels when I break the chains
Whatever it takes
You take me to the top, I'm ready for
Whatever it takes
'Cause I love the adrenaline in my veins
I do what it takes

Ahoy there me mateys! I absolutely loved the author's Bartimaeus trilogy + 1. I could gush about these books all day but I am on tight schedule so another day mehaps. I hadn't known about this series for some unknown and presumably silly reason so when I got the chance to read the first book I of course said Aye!! It is listed as a middle-grade but bah! I don't put age limits on things.

This was the perfect read for the beginning of Spooktober. Ghosts! The story is set in England where several decades ago the Problem began. Paranormal phenomenon became widespread. The catch is that only children and young adults can see and deal with the unsavories. Society has adapted and agencies have sprung up to deal with the problems.

Lucy Carlyle is one such ghost hunter. She has traveled to London to find work at a new agency. However her past is getting in the way and so she ends up working for a bottom of the barrel agency run by Lockwood. It is an agency run by teens with no adult supervision. Mistakes and chaos abound. Lockwood & Co. mess up big time and discover an unsolved murder mystery case. With the firm in peril, the agency gets a chance at redemption with one of the most haunted houses around. Will they survive?

That was one of the items I liked best - that ye can learn from and improve upon past mistakes. I also loved the relationships between the three ghost hunters, the wonderful atmospheric writing, the sophisticated world building, and the engrossing storyline. I had to know what happened next. While the murder mystery villain was extremely predictable I still had fun watching the case unfold. And the haunted house was just plain awesome. I actually got tingles. I highly recommend this one for readers of any age.

Side note: Apparently the fifth and final book of this series was just released in September! I think I may try to read the other four this month if I can track them down. Challenge accepted! ::brandishes cutlass:: Arrrr!

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for me honest musings. Arrrr!

I absolutely loved this book! I received a complementary copy in exchange for my review, true, but this was better than I anticipated! In fact, I'm considering purchasing the rest in the series after posting this review.

The characters, Lucy, Lockwood and George, work so well together. And this world that Stroud has created, where children fight ghosts and spirits because the adults in society can no longer see them--it is a really cool idea!

When Lucy takes out on her own to London she goes--all in search of a new company to be a part of. After being turned down by the more prestigious places she takes an interview with the Lockwood Company after reading of its boastings. After being brought on a kinship and comrade begins to develop among the small group of children as they find the Visitors and their subjects time and time again. And that relationship is needed when they are called upon to enter one of the most haunted locations in London.

Guys, for real though? Lockwood reminds me of a less pretentious Holmes. You're going to love this series!

I received a complementary copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

The following event is true...

On the rainy night of October 18th, I began Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase. The story started out normal enough with two young people searching a house for paranormal activity. And then…the creepiness commenced. There I sat in the basement, reading word to word – sometimes laughing and sometimes cringing. At last, the hour drew late and I put down the book. I retired. The rain transformed to a thunderstorm. Around 4 am, I was awoken by the sound of my computer starting up. I sat up to see my phone lighting up, and my alarm clock flashing red. I realized the power had flicked off for a second. I lay awake for some time until I listened to my body and rose to go to the loo. As I stepped out into the hall, a blue flickering light filled the large room. With a start, I wondered if I should call Lockwood & Co only to realize that the blue flickering light was just the digital clock alongside the wall, hidden behind shelves and bins. But then, I wonder…

Okay, enough of the creepy. I personally do not believe in ghosts, but I had to start out my review like that because it was literally stormy the night I started this book. And the lights really did go off and the blue flickering light had me puzzled for a split second. What better time to start this book? Jonathan Stroud is a witty, humorous writer and I am aware of his effective capability to write darkly. For those who have read Bartimaeus, Lockwood has much darker moments but it is just as comical. I recommend to fans of Stroud and those who like ghost stories. I am not one for the horror genre and this book did not get too scary for me – and that is saying something as I tend to scare easily. It did give me the shivers on some parts but that is all – no nightmares or anything. I like Lucy, Lockwood, and yes even George (we see everything from Lucy’s viewpoint, but George is not so bad from my point of view). The mystery part had me intrigued. I heard the sequels are not as good, which makes me sad but I am hoping they are still fun, creepy reads!

A truly wonderful book and concept, this book will ensure that you are hooked from the first page. The story is divided into parts, jumping into the middle of the plot in the beginning itself, then looping back in time to give us some background and perspective, and then charging right on. The best part? All these seemingly unconnected situations all come together in the end and wrap the plot up neatly.

The characters are brilliant, smart, funny, naughty but with a depth that will surprise the reader. There is more to them than meets the eye and it becomes rather clear as we read. Anthony Lockwood proves to be something of an enigma, not only to Lucy but to the reader as well. He is charming for a youngster, conducts himself as well as the elders and still manages to hide some things from everyone. Lucy is likeable and strong, with a talent that far surpasses both the boys. Together the trio set out to make London a safer place, protecting people from ghosts. The climax and the sequences leading up to it are intense and perhaps the best part of the entire book, but what stands out is how every seemingly random situation has a connection in the end. Everything is vital to the plot and it helps to pay attention to even the smallest of details.

It felt really great to immerse myself in this story. The author, with his wonderful storytelling ability, vividly describes each situation and haunting. Every case that the trio take up, we are given a chance to imagine what is happening, sometimes we can even see it playing in our mind. This just points to the wonderful way the author has with words. The characters are well developed and the basis of the plot along with the back story of how the various agencies came into existence makes this book all the more interesting. The ending leaves us with just enough information to want to continue the series.

Overall, not just for the sake of nostalgia, but for the beauty of the story, I strongly urge all my fellow fans of fantasy, ghosts and mystery to read this book!

Brief Summary: Lockwood, Lucy, and George comprise the ghost exorcising agency called Lockwood & Co., the only ghost agency run by teenagers. Struggling to keep their company afloat, they take on dangerous assignment after dangerous assignment, straining their talents to the max. One burned down house, one mysterious locket, and one looming conspiracy later, they may have uncovered something lurking in London's past that is more evil than they could have ever imagined.

The Tsundoku Scale: Top of the Pile, 10 out of 10.

The Good: Jonathan Stroud excels at making books that possess really great, exemplary dark humor, and The Screaming Staircase is no exception. So many books labeled dark humor end up unable to toe the line, and come off either more dark than funny (Gulliver's Travels) or almost too funny for its dark subject matter (The Book of Bunny Suicides), but Stroud has that deadpan British humor perfected, and it's a joy to read. This is a grisly, dystopian world Stroud is depicting where teenage kids have pretty much no choice but to exorcise dangerous ghosts for a living--ghosts that are likely to kill them. And yet the comedy is spot on, like when Lockwood & Co. burn down their client's entire house when trying to exorcise one little, though rather strong, ghost. (To put that in perspective, imagine a rodent exterminator burning down your house to remove a few rodents.) Or, for instance, there's the fact that George, Lockwood & Co's brilliant albeit cantankerous researcher often conducts his experiments on ghosts while taking a bath in the nude. Basically, Lockwood & Co are a bumbling, comic bunch of professional ghost killers that are always one step away from disaster, kind of like the Mystery Inc. gang in Scooby Doo, and you just never know what they'll do next. But what's great about this book is that there is so much more going on than this first impression, as the story still maintains its dark context: Lockwood himself has a mysterious past and is hiding something from the rest of his team, there may be some kind of conspiracy and corruption within the ghost exorcising agencies, and no one at all knows why the ghost have come to terrorize England in the first place! Best of all however, this book is what I like to call an honest man's trilogy. Though the story leaves enough loose ends, like those mentioned above, to make the reader want to read the next installment, the book stays honest--it remains a full story in and of itself that wraps up nicely as a single book. And I can't wait to meet a Type III ghost in the next book!

The Bad: I do worry that the story may end up being too formulaic as the series progresses, but as of now I'm confident that it will continue to hold my interest. Other than that, I'll always miss the footnotes from the Bartimaeus trilogy, as they were the first and only time I have ever enjoyed reading footnotes, but though this story (sadly) does not also have footnotes, it doesn't need them. This is a great book!

This was a great, very atmospheric paranormal-adventure read. Its world is a very odd combination of old-fashioned and modern. The tone of the writing feels early 1900's but then they will mention things like dishwashers, car alarms, and Coke. The cast of characters is very fun and well balanced. Lucy, the POV character, has a running mutual irritation with George, who is brilliant but has no social skills and is decidedly odd. Lockwood is a mysterious character, with many secrets, who gets by with slick charm, perfect elan, and a devastating smile. There were times I wanted to shake Lockwood, who is impetuous and impulsive, frequently acting without thinking or including his associates. Each of the three has their own paranormal and personality talent, which makes their combination very interesting. As for the worldbuilding of ghost hunting...fabulous! All the types, means of combating/eliminating, and the history of profession were real writing genius. I enjoyed each time we would encounter a phantasm and the group would name it and its characteristics then battle it. The ghostbusting was full of mystery and high danger drama. Where was the shade emanating from? What type was it? How could it be contained and then banished? Then there was the risk of being "ghost-touched" which could bring on loss of limbs or death. The jobs are serious and potentially deadly and this makes the story ghoulishly delicious. I enjoyed the book more and more as it went on. By the end I was already on the computer reserving my copy of the next book from the library. A great read that kids and young adults will find highly enjoyable.

It is the present although there are a few differences in the world as we know it. For the past fifty years apparitions have been increasing in the British Isles, meaning that some adjustments in everyday living have had to be made. With all the supernatural activity a new business has sprung up, but only with the younger members of society being able to deal with it. So whilst children deal with ghostly menaces adults have to step back, or play a supervisory role.

Narrated by Lucy Carlyle we find why she left her previous place of employment and travelled to London to try and find work with another agency. Having difficulty, when she roles up at the doors of Lockwood & Co it seems like her employment difficulties will be over. Owned by Anthony Lockwood, who prefers to just be called Lockwood, and with one employee, George Cubbins, how will Lucy fare?

Although for a younger market than me I did find this book immense fun to read, and other adults will probably be the same, so if you buy this for younger family members make sure you get some time to read it yourself. When Lockwood and Lucy have a certain mishap attending to a haunting they have to take on another case to be able to meet the damages they have to pay, and stay afloat. But how dangerous is this new case going to be, and what about the other case, which reveals an old unsolved murder?

With a prime suspect for this old murder at the time, now called back into the clutches of the police, is he innocent as he claims, or as guilty as can be? With a mystery element, which to be honest older readers should be able to solve long before the denouement this also has touches of horror, action and adventure. To be candid this book ticks the boxes for most of the things that people look for in a good read.

I was very kindly provided with a free review copy of this by the publisher via NetGalley for an unbiased and impartial review.

So often, fiction written for this age range is tiresome and predictable, counting on tasteless vulgarity or salacious tripe to make the sale to young adult readers. By the time I had read approximately 1.54 pages of this astonishingly well-written work I knew that this would not be the case here. Stroud's writing crackles with dry wit, glorious detail, realistic conversation, and remarkably well-developed scenarios. In this first book of the "Lockwood and Co." series the story hits the ground running, so to speak: running, fleeing, battling vengeful ghosts that can kill you if they touch you, and occasionally pausing for cups of tea or minor squabbles about who's fault it was that a crucial piece of ghost-fighting equipment is inexplicably missing from their otherwise well-stocked packs. By the time the ghost is--apparently--conquered any reader who doesn't find the subject matter too scary will be as caught as a specter unwittingly haunting an ironmongers' convention. The client's house (spoiler) has also burned beyond repair, putting our new heroes into a bit of a bind in the form of the looming loss of their ghost eradication business and pretty much everything they hold dear; but as a tale of murder, massive hauntings, bureaucratic battles, and the desperate struggle to survive a single night in the most haunted location in England unfolds that early predicament comes to seem like a rather unimportant obstacle to Lockwood and Co.'s ultimate, and much-deserved, success.

What sets this book apart from similar paranormal YA offerings is simply the scintillating quality of the writing itself. As tangled plotlines slowly converge into a grand triumph, readers will experience that terrific joy of knowing that they are in the hands of a master storyteller. If they are anything like me, they will then rush to acquire the other four titles in the series and devour them as voraciously as a hungry and insatiable ghost.

Jonathan Stroud is an excellent novelist whose books for children and young adults can easily be enjoyed by adults alike. My children were introduced to the Bartimaeus series by me; after reading The Golem's Eye I was hooked on that wonderful series. This is a kick start to another good series, about ghosts, hauntings and the like in England.

The two main characters, Lucy Carlyle and Anthony Lockwood, are both likable and it is easy to understand their character motivations. They must investigate Combe Carey Hall, which is a very haunted house in England, so haunted that other ghosts hunters have not been interested or have refused to help. There is a lot of suspense, a lot of character development, and unfortunately, not as much humor as I would have liked to have seen in this book. It is only the first one of a projected series, so perhaps the other books will be funnier.

I still miss the Bartimaeus series, and hope that this author will continue that book series at some point. Until then, I guess this book series will have to do.

After a disastrous accident, fifteen-year-old psychic investigator Lucy Carlyle leaves her small hometown and heads to the city of London to start her life over. However, without any references, no agencies are willing to hire her. Only the small outfit of Lockwood & Co., after seeing her unusually strong psychic abilities, offers Lucy a job, no questions asked.

Lucy works well as the main character. She’s talented, bright, and a little hot headed. Most importantly though, she isn’t shoehorned into some insipid, intrusive romantic subplot. Thus, the reader isn't lured into thinking of Lucy as “the girl” in the group. She’s a well-developed and interesting charcter that can stand on her own. With this new addition, the number of employees at Lockwood & Co. comes to a grand total of three. This includes the founder, Anthony Lockwood, a boy not too much older than Lucy and whose foolish swashbuckling demeanor disguises his great experience. The other member, George Cubbins, is a crabby character obviously intended to be a source of comic relief but one whose intelligence makes a great addition to the team. Combined, these three make a formidable team. Their personalities are well developed and work together to make their interactions interesting.

As the story follows the adventures of this ragtag group of ghost hunters, the reader slowly learns how the world has been affected by the sudden increase in paranormal activity. Staying out at night can be deadly, and profiteers have built massive corporate empires that supply the nervous masses with all of their ghost busting needs. Business slowly starts picking up as the employees of Lockwood & Co. begin to make names for themselves. As they start to take on higher profile cases, they begin to face more serious threats and uncover more dangerous information that may attract the wrong kind of attention. Just as I’ve come to expect of him, Johnathan Stroud does an excellent job giving every one of his characters their own unique personality and building a fantasy world perfect for them to inhabit. Fans of the Bartimaeus series will enjoy the way Stroud compliments the dark and dangerous settings Lockwood & Co. face with a bit of witty humor.

The Screaming Staircase is an enjoyable read full of mystery and suspense that constantly had me excitedly wondering which direction the story would take next. It hints at something big looming behind the scenes and ends with the promise of something interesting coming just around the corner. It’s clear that Stroud has something greater in store. Whatever that may be, you can be sure that I’ll be reading the sequel The Whispering Skull when it comes out this coming September.

Review by Camden

If you have read any of Jonathan Stroud’s other works such as the books in the Bartimaeus Sequence you know you are onto a winner. If you are new to his work then you’ll find in this offering that there is Ghost hunting, - where Ghosts kill, cause murder and mayhem. From the get go the book is great read, and once again the Mr Stroud’s abilities to generate some quirky but always well rounded and interesting characters is amazing. Really what is there not like about this book? In short this very good story telling and please do not pigeon hole yourself over which age group may read it, whether you in your teens or your sixties this book covers all.