The Screaming Staircase

Now there's a title that makes you want to run right out and read the book, right?! This is another fun YA book from Jonathan Stroud. I read the Bartimaeus Trilogy a long time back so when I saw this new series--Lockwood & Co-- in e-book format, I grabbed it.
The Problems have come to England--an excess of ghosts of varying levels of malevolence generally causing the shape of life to change. No one goes out after dark--except the children who are still able to sense the ghosts by sound or sight. They are on the defensive front line and Lucy Carlyle, having left her small village agency which just lost 3 agents, has come to London and joined Lockwood & Co. This is London's smallest ghost fighting group--only Lockwood, George, and now Lucy--and the only one without an adult supervisor. They are getting on OK until they accidentally burn down a house while fighting a surprisingly strong ghost. They are being sued and stand to lose the entire business until a new client makes them an offer they can't refuse.
But the murder they uncovered in the fire-related haunting has sinister ties to this new client, whose motives may not be simply to rid his country estate of terrifying spirits. These books are just a kick to read if you enjoy YA and the supernatural. Dive in, and don't forget your rapier, salt bombs and chains to keep the ghosts from getting too close! The e-book also provided a glossary of ghost types and the weapons used to fight them :-)