Friday Memes - Lockwood & Company: the screaming staircase by Jonathan Stroud

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

Lockwood & Company: the screaming staircase by Jonathan Stroud. 374 p. Disney/ Hyperion, September 17, 2013. 9781423164913. (Arc provided by the publisher at ALA Annual)

Publisher synopsis: A sinister Problem has occurred in London: all nature of ghosts, haunts, spirits, and specters are appearing throughout the city, and they aren't exactly friendly. Only young people have the psychic abilities required to see-and eradicate-these supernatural foes. Many different Psychic Detection Agencies have cropped up to handle the dangerous work, and they are in fierce competition for business.

In The Screaming Staircase, the plucky and talented Lucy Carlyle teams up with Anthony Lockwood, the charismatic leader of Lockwood & Co, a small agency that runs independent of any adult supervision. After an assignment leads to both a grisly discovery and a disastrous end, Lucy, Anthony, and their sarcastic colleague, George, are forced to take part in the perilous investigation of Combe Carey Hall, one of the most haunted houses in England. Will Lockwood & Co. survive the Hall's legendary Screaming Staircase and Red Room to see another day?

First line: Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victims, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up.

Page 56: There's a chapter break on page 56, so here's a chunk from page 57:

Some people claim the Problem has always been with us. Ghosts are nothing new, they say, and have always behaved the same. There's a story the Roman writer Pliny told, for instance, almost two thousand years avon. I't s about a scholar who bought a house in Athens. The house was suspiciously cheap, and he soon discovered it was haunted.



I was privileged to attend a Disney/ Hyperion preview at ALA Annual this past July, and Dina Sherman read an excerpt from the book. I could not wait to get my hands on it as I absolutely adored Mr. Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy. (I somehow never got around to reading the fourth installment, but plan on doing so this week on my beach vacation.)