The bone-shaking new trilogy continues – the latest adventure in the bestselling Skulduggery Pleasant series

Vengeance is a killer.

A killer is stalking and murdering sorcerers, and Valkyrie Cain is next on his list.

While hunting down a cult of magical terrorists intent on taking their revenge on the mortal world, Skulduggery and Valkyrie are drawn into a murder investigation with unsettling similarities to a case they just closed – the case that nearly took the lives of both Valkyrie’s sister and girlfriend.

With the body count rising, a special night approaches – a night where the elite of sorcerer society will gather on a remote island to witness a ceremony that could change that society forever.

Speeches will be made, champagne will be sipped, and two things will become terribly, distressingly clear…

No one is safe. And not everyone will make it out alive.

Published
July 1, 2025
Where to find this book
External links open a book search at the selected retailer. Availability may vary.
Skulduggery Pleasant

The series

Full series details →

Imagine a world just beneath our own—a world where ancient magic pulses through forgotten alleyways, secret organizations wage silent wars, and the only thing standing between humanity and chaos is a trench-coated skeleton with a razor-sharp wit. That’s the stormy heart of Skulduggery Pleasant, a genre-bending fantasy series that smashes together dark magic, quickfire dialogue, and the kind of world-building that lingers long after the last page.

Read full series description

At its center is an unlikely duo: Skulduggery, a fire-throwing sorcerer and detective who also happens to be very, very dead, and Valkyrie Cain, a seemingly ordinary girl whose plunge into the magical underground reveals dangerous power and a destiny she never asked for. Their partnership—equal parts banter, loyalty, and mutual exasperation—drives a story that evolves far beyond its early mystery roots.

What begins as a supernatural whodunit spirals into a sweeping, multi-arc saga about identity, corruption, and the fine line between hero and villain. The tone dances between laugh-out-loud absurdity and moments of unsettling darkness, often within the same chapter. It’s this unpredictability—this refusal to fit neatly into one genre box—that makes the series so addictive.

Over the years, the series has built a fiercely loyal readership. With each installment, the stakes rise, the world deepens, and the characters grow—sometimes into heroes, sometimes into something much darker. Beneath the spells and snark, there’s a steady undercurrent of moral complexity, asking what happens when the people saving the world start breaking it, too.

For fans of modern fantasy with a gothic twist, crackling dialogue, and characters who feel real in their flaws as much as their powers, this series doesn’t just entertain—it lingers, like smoke from a spell still hanging in the air.

Risingshadow

Anticipation distribution

How anonymous reader anticipation is distributed across the 1–10 scale.

103
91
81
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Risingshadow

Be the first reviewer

Sign in and write the first reader review.

Risingshadow

Readers Also Enjoyed