The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud (review)

In an alternative England plagued by hauntings, ghostbusting agencies are staffed mostly by Sensitive kids and teens, since only people under the age of eighteen have the psychic abilities to deal with the spirits properly. Young Lucy Carlyle is particularly gifted, though a recent mishap (accidentally burning a house down) while fighting a nasty shade alongside her pal/boss Lockwood might suggest otherwise. The incident brings their agency to the attention of a wealthy businessman who offers to pay for the damage to the house (and save Lockwood & Co. from financial ruin) if they spend the night investigating his recently acquired country home—which also happens to be one of the most haunted places in England. Stroud brings together the seemingly disparate plot points together with his usual combination of thrilling adventure and snarky humor. Fans of his Bartimaeus Trilogy will recognize Lockwood's assistant, George, as a kindred (albeit human) soul to that series' wise-cracking djinni, and indeed, all members of this spirit-smashing trio get in their fair share of zingers, providing a comedic balance to the many narrow escapes, false leads, and shape-shifting specters that otherwise occupy Lockwood & Co. The ghosts themselves are scary but not gory, and the descriptions are vivid without being intense, so that even readers who are traditionally scaredy-cats may very well find the horror here palatable. The world-building skips on the details a bit, but answers to the hows and whys of the spirit epidemic will likely appear in the future installment of this proposed series.