Scott Kirkman Books

Lockwood & Co. The Screaming Staircase is the first installment of a new fantasy series for Young Adult readers by Jonathan Stroud who also wrote the Bartimaeus trilogy and prequel.

Ghosts are running loose in London. Some are harmless, unless of course you have a weak heart, but others can maim or kill with just a touch. And they are hungry for human touch! The Problem, as it has come to be known, first became widespread in London about 50 years ago. Since then, it has altered the course of human history.

Professional agencies have arisen to combat the Problem and have developed weapons and techniques to find and remove the unwanted, “Visitors”. The daring field operatives of these agencies are mostly young teenagers due to their natural receptiveness to psychic phenomenon.

Lucy Carlyle, a young psychic investigator, trained in a small town, comes to London and finds a job at Lockwood & Co. The newest and smallest agency in London, Lockwood & Co. is unique because they have no adult supervisors. The company is lead by Anthony Lockwood. Dashing and charismatic, with a mysterious past, Lockwood is daring to the point of recklessness. George Cubbins is Lockwood’s only other employee. Although he’s a good agent in a tight spot, in many ways, George is the perfect counterpoint to his boss. A bit on the chubby side, George prefers extensive research and planning to running headlong into danger. George’s wickedly sarcastic sense of humor is a constant irritant to Lucy. The dynamic interplay between these three great characters yields much of the considerable humor and charm of Lockwood & Co.

Due to a disastrous early case, the fledgling agency is near collapse. Desperate to turn things around, Lockwood takes a suicidally dangerous case from a suspicious client. Of course, this is where things get truly interesting!

Lucy narrates the story, which is set in London, apparently in modern times, but with an alternate history brought about by the Problem. This is a device Mr. Stroud has used brilliantly in the past, helping to instantly create depth and realism to the fantasy world.

At it’s heart, The Screaming Staircase is a murder mystery with a fast paced and interesting plot. Although if I had one criticism it would be that, “who done it”, was easier to guess than I would have liked.

All in all, this is a fantastic story with a perfect balance of humor and frightening suspense. The world Mr. Stroud has created is captivating and unique – not easy to do when working with ghosts. Characters, story, and world all rev the needle on my cool-ometer very high. Not quite into the red, but close enough to make The Screaming Staircase a solid recommendation and me anxious for the sequel.

A note on age category – I’d put this book in the Young Adult category with a few caveats. The main characters are teenagers and much of the humor is dry and ironic, perhaps a bit much for Middle Graders. This being said, there is no overarching, heavy, adult themes here, just good solid entertainment. There are definitely some frightening, don’t-turn-the-lights-off, scenes, but Mr. Stroud does a fantastic job of creating scary suspense without going gory or horrific. So, for the right Middle Graders, those who don’t scare easy, it might be worth a try.

The Maze Runner is a Young Adult dystopian sci-fi novel written by James Dashner, who also wrote The Jimmy Fitcher Series, The 13^th Reality Series, The Infinity Ring Series, and The Eye of Minds.

Thomas is a teenage boy who wakes up in a metal box with no memories except his name. The box turns out to be an elevator that delivers him to, “the glade”. There he finds more teenage boys and learns that they are in a prison of sorts. The glade is hidden within a vast, ever changing, mechanical maze. The elevator brings food and supplies once a week and a new boy each month. Some boys have been there for two years.

At dawn, huge steel doors open, and the best and brightest of the boys, “run”, the maze, trying to map it and find a way out. They must return before nightfall when the doors close. Being trapped in the maze overnight means certain death; large, mechanical creatures, the boys call grievers, patrol the maze at night.

Despite his lack of memory, Thomas feels an overwhelming sense of familiarity about the glade and the maze. He quickly proves his metal and becomes a maze runner.

A short time after Thomas arrives, the elevator brings something unprecedented: a girl. She seems hurt or sick and says that she will be the last one ever, then lapses into a coma. Her ominous statement, along with some mechanical abnormalities they observe with the glade and maze, convince the boys that time is running out. Now, they are infused with a sense of urgency to quickly solve the mystery of the maze and get out.

I find myself coming down neutral on his book. It manged to meet my minimum requirements; I cared enough about Thomas and his companions to keep turning pages, and I was intrigued enough about the story and its mysteries to finish the book, but only just. Nothing in this book – characters, story, world, or action – really revved the needle of my cool-ometer. I kept wanting more to come at them from the maze.

This is meant to be a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel with a bit of sci-fi mixed in. In this, it succeeded. If you’re really into this sub-genre, give it a read. Still, for me, it lacked a certain level of depth and detail, and I found myself unsatisfied with the ending. I felt that Mr. Dashner left too many unanswered questions for a proper, stand alone, book, even for a series. I suspect that more layers are revealed and more mysteries explained in the subsequent books, but I lost interest somewhere in chapter one of book two, The Scorch Trials.

A note on age category – I’d put this book squarely in the Young Adult category. The main characters are teenagers and the story and feel is on the darker side. I wouldn’t recommend it for the 12 and under crowd.