Lockwood and Co: The Whispering Skull by Jonathan Stroud

Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle and George Cubbins are back on the job trying to neutralize the source for the ghost of the necromancer, Edmund Bickerstaff. When a powerful relic is stolen from the body, Lockwood and Company go head to head with their rivals from the Fitts agency to see who can recover it first. The relic and those who stole it turn out to be far more dangerous than they could have imagined.  I liked the first in the series, The Screaming Staircase.  It has an original premise, and really good suspense writing, but I thought the characters where not quite as interesting or dimensional as the ones in Stroud's "Bartimaeus" series.  In this second book Stroud explores the characters more deeply and their relationships become more complicated. I don't know if I liked it better than the first book, but I liked it as well and will be interested in reading the next in the series as soon as it comes out.  One thing that a co-worker and I discussed was that it is obvious the author is a man because if it were a woman she would have already done more with the hint of romance that is starting to occur between Lockwood and Lucy.  It will be interesting to see what he does with it, if anything, in the next book. (435 p)