Playing with Fire
Valkyrie Cain - once known to the world as twelve-year-old Stephanie Edgely - has learned a great deal since beginning her apprenticeship to Skulduggery Pleasant, the well-dressed living-dead wizard-detective. But she hasn't learned nearly enough to defeat the horrors massing against her and her friends...
An old foe of Skulduggery's, Baron Vengeous, is bent on bringing back to life the horrible Grotesquery - an unkillable monster assembled from the most fearsome beasts of legend. It's up to the ingenious, fearless, and hilarious Valkyrie and Skulduggery to stop the Grotesquery from coming fully to life. Because once it is alive it will summon its masters, the evil Faceless Ones whose return will mean the end of the world.
Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award for Children's Book of the Year (2009)
About the Skulduggery Pleasant Series
Books in series order
- 1.Skulduggery Pleasant (Scepter of the Ancients)(2007)
- 2.Playing with Fire(2008)
- 3.The Faceless Ones(2009)
- 4.Dark Days(2010)
- 5.Mortal Coil(2010)
- 6.Death Bringer(2011)
- 7.Kingdom of the Wicked(2012)
- 8.Last Stand of Dead Men(2013)
- 9.The Dying of the Light(2014)
- 10.Resurrection(2017)
- 11.Midnight(2018)
- 12.Bedlam(2019)
- 13.Seasons of War(2020)
- 14.Dead or Alive(2021)
- 15.Until the End(2022)
- 16.A Mind Full of Murder(2024)
- 17.A Heart Full of Hatred(2025)
- +Apocalypse Kings(2021)
- +Armageddon Outta Here(2014)
- +Gold, Babies and the Brothers Muldoon(2008)
- +Hell Breaks Loose(2023)
- +Tanith Low in the Maleficent Seven(2013)
- +The End of the World(2012)
- +The Lost Art of World Domination(2007)
Reading age: 10+ years
This series should be read in order.
Meet Skulduggery Pleasant:
Ace Detective
Snappy Dresser
Razor-tongued Wit
Crackerjack Sorcerer
and Walking, Talking,
Fire-throwing Skeleton.
He also happens to be the ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old girl.
These two alone must defeat an all-consuming ancient evil. The end of the world? Over his dead body.