The Screaming Staircase
UK cover | |
| Author | Jonathan Stroud |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Kate Adams |
| Cover artist | Alessandro "Talexi" Taini (UK) |
| Series | Lockwood & Co. |
| Genre | Supernatural, thriller |
| Publisher | Random House (UK) Disney-Hyperion (US) |
Publication date | August 29, 2013 (UK) September 17, 2013 (US) |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Hardcover, Paperback, ebook, Audio CD |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | 978-1-4231-6491-3 |
| Followed by | The Whispering Skull |
The Screaming Staircase is a young adult, supernatural thriller novel by Jonathan Stroud. It is the first book in the series Lockwood & Co., and was published on 29 August 2013 by Random House in the United Kingdom, and by Disney-Hyperion in the United States on 17 September 2013.
The story is set in a version of modern-day London experiencing an event called "the Problem," ghosts which appear throughout the city at nighttime and attack the living. Agencies have been created to fend off the ghosts and protect the public for a fee. However, only certain children and teenagers have the "talent" to sense the ghosts, which they gradually lose as they reach their twenties. The agencies are run by those who have passed the ghost-sensitive age, and the agents are the youth with the talents necessary to solve the hauntings, which puts them in danger in the process.
The story follows Lucy Carlyle and Lockwood & Co., the only supernatural agency in London run by children. The agency is led by Anthony Lockwood and has one other member prior to Lucy's joining, George Cubbins. As the series progresses, they investigate and solve hauntings and find deeper truths behind the ghosts and the Problem.