Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked

The book begins with four teenagers called Kitana, Doran, Elsie and Sean on a rooftop in Dublin. Previously normal, they have suddenly developed magical powers, that they are seen experimenting with. A sorcerer called Patrick Xebec finds them and tries to report them to the Irish Sanctuary, but they kill him before he is able to do so.

The four are not the only people to have gained magical powers; Sanctuary detectives Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain are tasked with finding and bringing in these seemingly magical mortals, encountering a man who can fly, and a werewolf. The werewolf, Ed Stynes, tells Pleasant that he was given the powers in a dream, by a man called Argeddion.

At the Irish Sanctuary, Quintin Strom and Bernard Sult representing the Supreme Council, pressure the Irish Sanctuary into accepting help from the international community, after several previous crises originating in Ireland, that put the world at risk.

Meanwhile, Eliza Scorn requests the help of Christophe Nocturnal, the leader of the American Church of the Faceless, to merge the American and Irish churches. Later, Eliza enlists the help of Tanith Low and orders her to murder Christophe Nocturnal in his cell, so all the people from his Church of the Faceless can be dissolved into hers.

Pleasant and Cain try to locate Argeddion. They meet Greta Dapple, a woman who Argeddion used to date, who tells them he used to be a pacifist called Walden D'Essai, whose greatest wish was to discover his True Name. After discovering it was Argeddion, he started preaching about the so-called Summer of Light, however he soon disappeared. Asking the Irish Elders for help, they find that D'Essai was handed over to detective Tyren Lament, who was tasked with making sure that Argeddion never used his power. They decide to find Silas Nadir, a dimension-travelling serial killer connected to Lament, hoping to question him about Lament's work. They travel to Hammer Lane Gaol, which is run by warden Delafonte Mien. When asked about Nadir, Mien nervously states that he had died of a heart attack years ago. Skulduggery eventually works out that Nadir is still alive, and that Mien is using him to run the Gaol's security system which involves shifting the prison through dimensions. During an ensuing prison riot, Valkyrie is separated from Skulduggery, and is forced to escape alone to the basement. She and Skulduggery are reunited there and come across Nadir. They manage to release and arrest him, but not before he grabs Valkyrie's arm. He gives them names of Lament's group, who are all missing, presumed dead.

Soon after, Valkyrie is attacked by an old lady in a coffee shop, but Tanith Low intervenes and kills the woman, informing Valkyrie that she and Billy-Ray Sanguine have returned from the States, and that the woman was sent by Christophe Nocturnal. Nocturnal is later seen arrested by the Sanctuary.

Skulduggery realises that Lament and his group aren't dead, but are guarding Argeddion so that he doesn't use his powers. Skulduggery works out that in order to transport something big enough to contain Argeddion, they would've had to use a freight company, most likely the company owned by Arthur Dagan. Valkyrie approaches his son, Hansard Kray, for information. She learns that Tyren Lament and his team had some cargo delivered to a location in the Alps, where Skulduggery and Valkyrie decide to set off to.

Later, Valkyrie starts to feel her arm hurt in the place Silas Nadir grabbed her. She is then 'shunted' into another dimension. She is attacked by the Cleavers of this dimension, known as Redhoods. She manages to escape, and later meets Alexander Remit, a Teleporter who attempts to arrest her. She fights him off and is re-shunted back into her original universe, but not before she hears Remit mention that Mevolent rules this dimension.

Meanwhile, Scapegrace and Thrasher meet with Clarabelle. They go to Dr. Nye who agrees to give them new bodies, in exchange for the body of the dead White Cleaver. Nye later finishes the procedure, leaving Scapegrace with a woman's body, while Trasher is given a male one.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery find Lament, but he does not allow them to see Argeddion. He later agrees, and they find the prison he is contained in, the Cube. They realise that when powered by the Accelerator, the Cube could imprison Darquesse if she is released again, and they hatch a plan to do so.

Doran, Kitana, Sean and Elsie go to Doran's house and find his older brother, Tommy, who Doran kills. Seeing that their immense power is causing them to become murderous, Elsie leaves the others. Valkyrie and Geoffrey Scrutinous question Doran about the murder and Valkyrie suspects he is involved with Tommy's death. When they follow Doran to a coffee shop, they are attacked by Kitana. They escape, but Kitana takes Valkyrie's jacket.

The Sanctuary develops a plan to acquire the Sceptre of the Ancients in order to erase Argiddeon from existence. Upon his return, he decides to eliminate all his experimental magic users, as he observes their new murderous behaviour. He steals the souls of a few of his test subjects, which threatens Kitana and her friends. Taking advantage of the situation, Skulduggery and Valkyrie enlist them to help imprison Argeddion. During this time, Valkyrie is shunted twice over into the parallel dimension, or 'The Kingdom of The Wicked'. The second time, she and Skulduggery meet the alternate version of China Sorrows. When told the circumstances of their meeting, she enlists Nefarian Serpine to guide them to Mevolent's palace. With the help of Serpine, who has had a fallout with Mevolent due to his worship of the Faceless Ones, they rescue her captured Reflection from the palace, and escape with the Sceptre. Valkyrie later transports to her reality assuming that the Sceptre was lost in the alternate dimension, not knowing that she brought it with her, which allows her Reflection to steal it.

Back in Ireland, the Grand Mage of the global magic community threatens to dissolve the Irish Sanctuary because of the incompetence shown by the council but Ravel and Ghastly temporarily subdue the outbreak by detaining the Grand Mage in the Sanctuary.

Valkyrie and Skulduggery go to Fletcher for help with stopping Argeddion, and see that he has a new girlfriend, Myra. Kitana kills Greta Dapple, weakening Argeddion's morale. The Sanctuary attacks him, rendering him temporarily unconscious, only for Kitana to reveal her true colors and turn on them. Skulduggery and Valkyrie take on the personas of Lord Vile and Darquesse to defeat her, but Darquesse gets shunted again afterward. Mevolent finds her and almost succeeds in killing her, but she manages to trick him and escape, returning to her own dimension. She kills Kitana, and once again goes head to head with Lord Vile. Skulduggery later returns to his senses and induces an epileptic shock in Darquesse, allowing Valkyrie to return to her true self.

Back at the Sanctuary, the Grand Mage is released and agrees to a truce only to be killed later by Tanith Low before he can discuss the truce with his Sanctuary. Skulduggery, Valkyrie, and the Council of Elders prepare for the global scale unsanctioned war that is sure to follow.

In the epilogue, Valkyrie's Reflection murders Carol after giving her the Sceptre of the Ancients, before ordering Carol's newly created Reflection to take on her identity.

• Patrick Wan (SF's Crow's Nest):

The good thing about that is that there’s never a dull moment and practically each chapter ends with some sort of a jaw-dropping cliff-hanger. It’s almost impossible to put this book down and the fact that it’s the biggest book in the series yet, it’s possible to read for a three hour block without stopping, until you finally reach one of the scarce breaks between each adventure.[3]

• Joseph Melda (The Book Zone):

Has Derek Landy sold his soul to the devil? Or perhaps at some point he managed to capture a leprechaun? Surely writing talent this great is not gained through natural means? Surely there has to be some supernatural explanation as to how he continues to produce brilliant story after brilliant story, the latest weighing in at a hefty 607 pages?[4]

• Rhys Wolfgang (ThirstForFiction):

With any other author, the series might be have been getting a little tired with its seventh instalment. Landy, however, has proven moreover that he is extremely capable as a writer, and as the series leaves its naïve roots behind and becomes rather violent and dark (in a fantastic way), it’s clear that the next two books won’t lack in quality. Kingdom of the Wicked is another excellent instalment in one, if not THE best middle-grade/young-adult crossover series of the last decade.[5]

• Vesuvius Blotch (Blotch's Reviews):

Kingdom of the Wicked is a superb, finely crafted story from start to finish, slick and polished characterisation, a reservoir of memorable dialogue and magnificent concepts inserted in for the best measure. It tells the story it needs to tell and no more, no less, it’s a flawless construct of everything that has come before and a strong bridgeway into everything that needs to come next.[6]

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