Book Review: The Whispering Skull

 Summary: In the six months since Anthony, Lucy, and George survived a night in the most haunted house in England, Lockwood & Co. hasn't made much progress. Quill Kipps and his team of Fittes agents keep swooping in on Lockwood's 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 George's 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 Lockwood's annoyance. Bickerstaff's 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.
  
 Thoughts: As I've mentioned before, I don't really go in for ghost stories but Lockwood & Co. are quickly becoming favorites of mine. I just can't even begin to explain how much I love these characters! The development that each one goes through with each new twist and the depth they already have is captivating. And that teasing little plot-bomb at the end! But I'm not going to spoil it. Needless to say, A++ on character development and cast in general. Even the new characters or the minor ones that get featured more in here, are so well done!
  The plots can be predictable, but never all the way through, there's too much going on to ever truly understand the whole scope of things 'till the end but you can usually guess what's coming next. Even so, I love the winding road the plot takes that leads to a conclusion that is epic and hilarious and charming all at once. 
 The writing is great. Told by Lucy, the author writes her as a real person, with emotions, opinions, and biases. These are made clear enough that (for the most part) no matter what Lucy thinks of so-and-so we can still form our own opinions about the character. Because, and this is what makes her truly enjoyable, Lucy isn't always right about people.

Content: Supernatural stuff. Violence. Death (it's a story about ghosts and dead people, there's going to be a lot of talk and seeing death). And some language such as D***. All in all though, a mostly clean and truly thrilling read for teens and older readers (preferably those who don't scare too easily when reading ghost stories during the day)!