Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
When I was younger I used to write blog-novels with a friend, each taking turns at creating a chapter and taking the story in a new direction - I've mentioned them before in my Grimm's Fairy Tales review. This novel reminds me of those novels for a few interesting reasons. Firstly, this novel is very funny, in a very silly way, and I've always enjoyed 'silly-funny.' Secondly, our fourth blog-novel was titled And Starring Erstwhile Rogers As Himself, and followed our protagonist Erstwhile Rogers as he got involved in a strange mystery and had to, detective-like, try to solve it. Of course, Erstwhile Rogers was not as well-written as Skulduggery Pleasant is, but the idea of a strangely-monikered 'detective' getting involved in a somewhat fantastical world sounds oddly familiar to me. And for the record, Erstwhile Rogers was finished two years before Skulduggery Pleasant came out. Just saying.
The titular character, as given away on the cover, is a skeleton. He is also a detective, and a magician, and somewhat of a warrior. He also is not our point-of-view character; that is Stephanie Edgley, a 12 year old girl who at the beginning of the story inherits her late uncle Gordon's estate. Gordon was a mystery/horror writer of sorts, and as the story progresses it emerges that most of his ideas came from adventures he had with Skulduggery - though as with most plot-points like this within the book, the revelation is couched in humorous banter between Stephanie and Skulduggery:
"The things he wrote about," Stephanie said, the idea just dawning on her, "are they true?"
"His books? No, not a one."
"Oh."
"They're more inspired by true stories, really. He just changed them enough so he wouldn't insult anyone and get hunted down and killed."
(pages 64-65)
This book is aimed at older children, though I think probably teenagers would enjoy it better. It has a lot of humour and is quite fast paced. It is also slightly darker than some children's books - death occurs, sorcerers and 'dark gods' abound, and H. P. Lovecraft is referenced at one point - though it is also perhaps not quite as dark as one might think considering the main character and the cover. The villain, Serpine, is quite evil, but does get defeated in the end (spoilers).
I really enjoyed the humour in this book, which I read mostly to see what it was like before I put it on my classroom library shelf. I don't know how dark the sequels may get, but I reckon a lot of students will enjoy this one.
Published 24 January 2023.
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