Book Review: Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Rating
4.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis
Meet the great Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course). Oh yeah. And dead. Then there's his sidekick, Stephanie. She's! well, she's a twelve-year-old girl. With a pair like this on the case, evil had better watch out! "So you won't keep anything from me again?" He put his hand to his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die." "Okay then. Though you don't actually have a heart," she said. "I know." "And technically, you've already died." "I know that too." "Just so we're clear." Stephanie's uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction. Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source -- the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard. When all hell breaks loose, it's lucky for Skulduggery that he's already dead. Though he's about to discover that being a skeleton doesn't stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there's anything Skulduggery hates, it's torture! Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing's for sure: evil won't know what's hit it.

My Review:
Ok so I really liked this book, my son wanted to read this, so I decided to read it before hand. I found it such a different type of idea. It starts of with the lead character Stephanie finding out that her beloved Uncle has died. I found the chapter about the reading of the will was hillarious. It then is a non stop rollercoaster, with fantastic characters and oneliners.

The style of writing reminds me of Percy jackson and the lightening thief, with the same tempo and the same feel of the unbelieveable being the believable.

Stephanie is a thoroughly mordern heroine. A 12 year old with an independant streak yet with compassion and empathy.

I don't know why but in my mind I always felt like it was set in the like it was a scene in dick tracy, haha. Maybe because of Skullduggery's hat.