Librarian Book Review: Lockwood & Co. - The Screaming Staircase

​BOOK TITLE: 
Lockwood & Co. The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

BOOK SUMMARY:
The city of London has a "Problem". Ghost, spirits, and Specters are appearing throughout the city and they're not exactly friendly. Only young people have the ability to see, hear and get rid of these troublesome beings. The three-person team at Lockwood & Co. is a small team but worthy of the task they have been hired for - to investigate one of the most haunted houses in England, Combe Carey Hall.
Will they survive the night battling the house's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room?
 
REVIEW:
If you like the Harry Potter series, you'll likely like this series by Jonathan Stroud.  A ghost-fighting trio made up of three youngsters who live and work together taking on and finishing off spirits. It's entertaining from the start, full of action and adventure.  Heroine Lucy Carlyle is funny and spunky even as her life twists and turns bringing her to Lockwood & Co.  Anthony Lockwood, the head of the firm, operates with quiet leadership but hides his family background behind a mysterious closed door.  George Cubbins is the researcher of the team working in archives around the city to gather as much information as possible on their supernatural foes.  

After an assignment ends disastrously leaving their firm hanging on by a thread, the group receive a curious offer from an even stranger client. They now must take part in a dangerous investigation of one of the most haunted houses in all of England, Combe Carey Hall.

The house is known for it's Screaming Staircase and Red Room.  The gang are limited in their weapons by a strange request from their client and wonder if they'll see morning!  As the night wears on, they venture further and further in the house finally entering the Red Room.  What they face on the other side of the door is unimaginable and leads them to an even more dangerous place.  The final act will have you holding your ears and hoping the end is near!  

As the two assignments merge together, an unsolved murder and an immense haunting will collide in one frightening night locked inside Combe Carey Hall. 

Traveling along with Anthony, Lucy & George is a wild, spirited ride that I think you'll enjoy and leave you wanting more.

OVERALL THOUGHTS:
I had my reservations about reading a "children's book" but I was immediately drawn into the world of Lockwood & Co.  The dialogue moves along at a nice clip with good amounts of humor mixed in to lighten the mood of ghosts and goblins.  Though I wouldn't recommend this for very young readers, or those who don't like "ghost stories", for older youngsters, teens and adults, this is a quick, entertaining, easy read well worth your time.  

I'm now reading the next book in the series "The Whispering Skull".  The author Jonathan Stroud also wrote the best-selling "Bartimaeus" books.

WHERE TO FIND AT THE LIBRARY:
Currently on the Book Picks shelf but normally found in Juvenile Fiction - J FIC STR

Cautions for Sensitive Readers:
Language: no
Violence: Some, light overall
Sex: no
Drugs/Alcohol: no

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