This is the 16th book in a very successful series involving a skeleton known as Skulduggery Pleasant and his offsider, Valkyrie Cain.
These books are a series of whodunnits in which there is a magical world that exists alongside the mortal world (overtones of ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘Rivers of London’). There are those within the magical world who despise this relationship and wish to break this nexus, and there seems to be an inherent evil which wants to destroy both worlds!
At the heart of the novel is a whodunnit story about a series of what seems to be unrelated deaths of both mortal and magical people who expire in the most extraordinary ways and the villain always seems one step ahead of Skulduggery and Valkyrie. On top of that he taunts them with a series of clues and puzzles for them to solve.
There is also a secondary story involving Valkyrie’s sister, Winter, who is tired of living in her big sister’s shadow (somehow, she saved the world and became a god, I need to do more research on that!) who becomes involved in a group called the Ancients whose aim seems to be the enslavement and elimination of mortals (shades of Voldemort).
This is an enjoyable novel that kept me interested and guessing (lots of red herrings). It’s the first of a new trilogy in the ‘Skulduggery’ series and hints at some darker forces at work, which I assume will be revealed in the later books.
Reviewed by Anthony Llewellyn-Evans
Age Guide 11+
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