To my mind, Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy (starting with The Amulet of Samarkand and published between 2003 and 2005) is one of the all-time greats of children's fantasy. It combines hugely entertaining comedy with really thrilling action more successfully than almost any other sequence I can think of. Sometimes drily witty, sometimes broadly farcical, each volume is laced through with delights, yet its fantasy world is built with total credibility and much originality. The character of the cantankerous ‘djinni’, Bartimaeus, is one of the most splendid and imaginative creations of recent children’s literature, and his relationship with rather incompetent magician’s apprentice, Nathaniel, is developed quite wonderfully. Recommended every bit as strongly is the subsequently written prequel, The Ring of Solomon (2010).
In truth, I have not felt his more recent children's/YA series, Lockwood & Co (started 20012), to be in quite the same league in terms of originality. These books involve the exploits of a small 'firm' of teenage ghostbusters, in a broadly contemporary world, which is being plagued by an extensive outbreak of the supernatural. However, each of these books is extremely well written, as I have come to expect from Jonathan Stroud, and provides great reading entertainment. They too are a clever and successful mixture of humour and viscerally exciting action, with strongly drawn, interesting and likeable characters, as well as a whole cast of gruesome spooks. Jonathan Stroud most certainly has an imagination with a strong feel for the supernatural. These are haunting adventures in every sense; entertainingly dark, whilst falling short of being seriously disturbing.
The latest in the series, The Creeping Shadow, is the best yet. Three elements in particular ratchet up its involving readability. Lucy Carlyle, the narrator, undoubtedly talented but actually somewhat insecure, was a founder member and stalwart of Lockwood & Co. Now, however, she has left the firm to set up as an indendent investigator. Her reasons I will not reveal, as that would be something of a spoiler. However, the hanging question of whether or not she should or will return to the fold of her old firm adds an extra frisson to the story. In fact her relationship with enigmatic Lockwood is developing (or not, as the case may be). It teeters somewhere on an intriguing cusp between teenage friendship and pre-sexual romance. Frisson upon frisson, then.
Additionally Lucy's conversations with the gruesome talking skull, which she insists on carrying about with her, have developed something of the same entertaining love-hate relationship as Nathaniel had with Bartimaeus. Jonathan Stroud has cleverly transposed a winning formula into his new context, changed it enough to be novel, but retained its huge entertainment value. Laughs upon laughs then.
Finally this book significantly ups the ante for our psychic investigators. Now it is no longer simply (!) the ghosts, ghouls and other grizzlies that the intrepid teens have to battle. There is a mega-villain to be thwarted, and perhaps an even bigger, badder one over the horizon. Not only horror upon horror, but thrill upon thrill too.
This series has now developed into something very special in its own right. The next book, heralded as the final climactic one, will be eagerly anticipated by many fans - and they certainly include me.