The Whispering Skull

About this book

NOW A NETFLIX SERIES In this spine-tingling next book of the Lockwood & Co series the ghost-hunting gang take on terrifying new challenges. In the six months since Anthony Lucy and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England Lockwood & Co. hasnt made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwoods investigations. Finally in a fit of anger Anthony challenges his rival to a contest: the next time the two agencies compete on a job the losing side will have to admit defeat in the Times newspaper. Things look up when a new client Mr. Saunders hires Lockwood & Co. to be present at the excavation of Edmund Bickerstaff a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead. Saunders needs the coffin sealed with silver to prevent any supernatural trouble. All goes well-until Georges curiosity attracts a horrible phantom. Back home at Portland Row Lockwood accuses George of making too many careless mistakes. Lucy is distracted by urgent whispers coming from the skull in the ghost jar. Then the team is summoned to DEPRAC headquarters. Kipps is there too much to Lockwoods annoyance. Bickerstaffs coffin was raided and a strange glass object buried with the corpse has vanished. Inspector Barnes believes the relic to be highly dangerous and he wants it found. The author of the blockbuster Bartimaeus series delivers another amusing chilling and ingeniously plotted entry in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series. Praise for The Screaming Staircase: "This story will keep you reading late into the night but youll want to leave the lights on. Stroud is a genius at inventing an utterly believable world which is very much like ours but so creepily different. Put The Screaming Staircase on your need to read list!" -- Rick Riordan "A pleasure from tip to tail this is the book you hand the advanced readers that claim theyd rather read Paradise Lost than Harry Potter. Smart as a whip funny witty and honestly frightening at times Stroud lets loose and gives readers exactly what they want. Ghosts kids on their own without adult supervision and loads of delicious cookies." -- Elizabeth Bird School Library Journal "Stroud shows his customary flair for blending deadpan humor with thrilling action and the fiery interplay among the three agents of Lockwood & Co. invigorates the story (along with no shortage of creepy moments)." -- Publishers Weekly "A heartily satisfying string of entertaining near-catastrophes replete with narrow squeaks and spectral howls." -- Kirkus Reviews