reread note; ok so this is when the overarching plot really gets going. excellent. ( )

Still an excellent story, but a bit darker than the others. Plus, not as much of the funny. ( )

When you need lightweight fantasy craziness with ultra-violence, wit and nemeses who just keep on coming back, book after book, your two best options are Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books and Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant novels. The Fowl has gone off the boil (I haven't bothered with the latest one) so that leaves Landy and the Skeleton Detective as possessors of the field. Except Pleasant is stuck in another dimension with a bunch of Gods that appear to have escaped from a Lovecraft story. Which means Valkyrie Cain, who is the real protagonist of this series, is on a rescue mission. So...how good is Skulduggery Vol. IV?

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN CURTAILED IN PROTEST AT GOODREADS' CENSORSHIP POLICY

See the complete review here:

http://arbieroo.booklikes.com/post/334936/post

Spoilers for book three in the series: Skulduggery Pleasant has been sucked into the world of the Faceless Ones and now Valkyrie is working to bring him back. There’s also the matter of a man who has been in prison for the last 200 years wanting to exact some revenge upon the Sanctuaries (the ruling bodies of the magical world). And sensitives are starting to experience dreams and prophecies of the world coming to an end. Nothing to worry about.
This series has always been a lot of fun. Pleasant’s dry humor is spot-on and unlike the Harry Potter series (which also famously involves a child who learns about the magical world and his place in it), this is a little more grim from the get-go. Valkyrie doesn’t go off to a wizarding school, she just gets taken on as apprentice to Pleasant who is a detective. He’s also a skeleton, by the way. By this book, she’s been working cases and saving the world with Skulduggery for years. They’ve gathered a sort of motley crew of allies who help out when things get dicey, and they always do.
It had been a few years since I had read book three in the series, so I was worried I might not remember much when I started reading this one, but I needn’t have worried: It’s basically impossible to forget these characters. (Except Fletcher. I totally forgot about Fletcher.) The world created by Landy is so distinctive and real for me that it was easy to slide back in and enjoy the new story. I wouldn’t recommend reading this series out of sequence, but I wholeheartedly recommend this series, starting with (conveniently enough) Skulduggery Pleasant. ( )

I have ordered this book from Play and at the time of writing I'm still waiting on it although now that I've had the book from the school library and have read it no doubt it will have arrived today, oh well.

As for the book what can I say, I absolutely love this series and I hate when the book is finished as then I need to wait on the next one although thankfully I only need to wait until September. I love Landy's humour and sarcasm. The characters are brilliant, they are well developed and well written. ( )