Jonathan Stroud

"Lockwood & Co. are hired to investigate Edmund Bickerstaff, a Victorian doctor who reportedly tried to communicate with the dead, while Lucy is distracted by urgent whispers coming from the skull in a ghost jar"--

"A terrible crime forces Lockwood to turn to Lucy for help, setting them on the trail of dark secrets at the heart of London society. Both professionally and personally, their investigation stirs up forces they may not be able to control. . ."--

In their continuing adventures, magician's apprentice Nathaniel, now fourteen years old, and the djinni Bartimaeus travel to Prague to locate the source of a golem's power before it destroys London.

When young Halli Sveinsson plays a trick on Ragnor of the House of Hakonsson, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever alter his destiny, forcing him to leave home and go on a hero's quest where he encounters highway robbers, terrifying monsters, and a girl who may finally be his match.

"Albert and Scarlett are a formidable pair. With his ability to read minds and her way with a weapon, no bank can keep them out and no jail can keep them in. But their notoriety may have spread a bit too far. Now old enemies from Scarlett's past and a sinister new threat from Albert's world are boxing them in--and holding their friends hostage. To win their freedom, the outlaws Scarlett and Browne are charged with pulling off an impossible mission....

Nathaniel is eleven years old and a magician’s apprentice, learning the traditional arts of magic. All is well until he has a life-changing encounter with Simon Lovelace, a magician of unrivaled ruthlessness and ambition. When Lovelace brutally humiliates Nathaniel in public, Nathaniel decides to speed up his education, teaching himself spells way beyond his years. With revenge on his mind, he masters one of the toughest spells of all and summons...