Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones

Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones is young adult and fantasy novel written by Irish playwright Derek Landy, published in April 2009. It is the third of the Skulduggery Pleasant series and sequel to Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing with Fire.

The Faceless Ones
AuthorDerek Landy
Cover artistTom Percival
Country Ireland
LanguageEnglish
SeriesSkulduggery Pleasant
GenreChildren's novel, Fantasy novel, detective novel, comedy novel, adventure novel
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication date
6 April 2009
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages395 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN0-00-73062-37 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC877986714
Preceded byPlaying with Fire (2009) 
Followed byDark Days (2010) 

The story follows the sorcerers and detectives Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant and numerous magic-wielding allies as they try to prevent Batu and the Diablerie from using the remains of the Grotesquery and the last teleporter to return the Faceless Ones to the world. The book would not see release in the US and Canada until 2018.[1] HarperCollins Audio also publishes the unabridged CD sets of the books read by Rupert Degas.


Plot summary

Characters

Valkyrie Cain

Skulduggery Pleasant
Main article: Skulduggery Pleasant

Batu

Batu, also known as Patrick "Paddy" Hanratty, is the mysterious force behind releasing the Faceless Ones.

Fletcher Renn

Fletcher Renn is a 17-year-old London kid and the last teleporter. He is the last of his kind and suddenly everyone is after him. He is smug, annoying, and big-headed, and if the Diablerie don't get to him, Valkyrie might very well strangle him anyway.

Kenspeckle Grouse

Kenspeckle Grouse, described as a cranky old man, is a doctor who fixes Skulduggery's and Valkyrie's injuries and continually lectures them both about Skulduggery's decision to train Valkyrie. Despite his disapproval, he has a soft spot for Valkyrie, strongly expressing his dislike for Skulduggery in his presence.

The Diablerie

The Diablerie was Mevolent's most ruthless group devoted to bringing the Faceless Ones back, the final active three members of which ally themselves with Batu to achieve their goal.

Reviews

Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones has opened to largely positive reviews by critics.

Full of brilliantly named and larger than life characters -- from Solomon Wreath to Ghastly Bespoke and Finbar Wrong -- the reader is caught up in the excitement and drama of every scene[;] Landy's dialogue crackles with authenticity and wit.[2]
If you enjoy battles of magic and humour popping up and making you laugh, this is just the book for you.[3]
gollark: It's mentally challenging, sometimes, but obviously not particularly physically hard.
gollark: There are lots of cool applications now. Automatic generation of art, protein folding, human-level competitive programming, good OCR.
gollark: Ah, but it's *very complicated* curve fitting which can sometimes do interesting things.
gollark: Any particular improvement might not work, but I would be *very very surprised* if people several hundred years ago just happened to stumble on the optimal court system.
gollark: *An* issue is that sentencing can vary significantly based on judges' arbitrary opinions and how they are feeling. So maybe if you averaged over multiple judges once the facts of the case were determined it would help. Although there are a lot of ways for that to go wrong (messing with the framing of those and such).

References
  1. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/76749-he-s-baaaack-harpercollins-reintroduces-skulduggery-pleasant.html
  2. Skulduggery is now back for Round Three
  3. Book Review – Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy - review
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