Skulduggery Pleasant

Landy. D (2007). Skulduggery Pleasant. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

It starts with a writer's death. Then the familiar reading of the will with the greedy brother and his wife, a friend of the deceased who is a stranger to all in the family, and a surprised, sweet, favored niece who gets the bulk of the estate. When Stephanie the a fore mentioned niece ends up having to stay the night in her new home alone, an intruder attacks her. In comes the stranger from the will reading, he is fighting with the intruder. Here is where the story turns. When throwing the man around doesn't stop him the stranger throws fire, yes fire at him. Even that doesn't work. So he shoots at him to scare him off. After the attacker leaves, Stephanie sees that her savior is a skeleton! Just like that the reader is introduced to the hero of this tale and what starts out as a realistic fiction centered around a family turns into high action fantasy fiction. Skulduggery Pleasant is the name of the hero. Stephanie finds out her uncle was murdered. She and Skulduggery go off in search of the murdered and the Sceptre of the Ancients. The form a team with others: Ghastly Bespoke and China Sorrows.They fight sorcerers, team up with other magical or elemental beings. They are double crossed but never deter. They must keep Serpine the evil sorcerer, and Uncle Gordon's murderer, from controlling the world with the Book of Names. Eventually they destroy him and decide to become a powerful duo fighting evil magic. Stephanie then changes her name to Valkyrie Cain.

There is a niche for boys' fiction. This book and the ones that are part of the Skulduggery Pleasant series would fall into that niche. Boys of middle school age would read and probably enjoy this even if they do not love to read.  Girls can find this enjoyable too. The protagonist is a tough 12 year old female who doesn't just let all the males do the heavy action. I was surprised that I liked this book.  I may not continue the series but would recommend it to students who need to graduate from Big Nate and the like.