Lockwood & Co.: Book One

Fantasy

First published: 2013
Print length: 390 pagesScholastic Inc., 2014

Description

Modern London is besieged by the Problem, an epidemic of hostile ghosts that only psychically gifted children and teenagers can perceive well enough to fight. Fifteen-year-old Lucy Carlyle joins Lockwood & Co., the city’s only agency run entirely by young people, working beside meticulous researcher George Cubbins and reckless, secretive Anthony Lockwood. Their clients pay them to enter dangerous buildings and confront apparitions without adult supervision. When a disastrous assignment exposes the agency to legal claims and financial ruin, the team accepts a tightly controlled investigation at England’s most haunted house. Lucy’s narration combines supernatural menace, detective work, and prickly companionship as three vulnerable agents try to uncover a haunting’s history while keeping both themselves and their precarious business alive.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Dialogue-driven · Direct · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Eerie · Frightening · Humorous · Suspenseful

Structure

Linear

Focus

Mystery · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

BelongingComing of ageFriendshipSurvivalTraumaWork

About Jonathan Stroud

Jonathan Stroud is a British fantasy writer whose novels combine brisk plotting, supernatural danger, and dry comedy with close attention to hierarchy and social power. He often builds alternative versions of London in which young people must navigate institutions that are compromised, exclusionary, or simply less capable than they appear. His prose is direct and dialogue-driven, while mysteries advance through dangerous assignments, withheld histories, and shifting loyalties. In the Bartimaeus sequence, alternating viewpoints set Nathaniel’s wounded ambition beside the sardonic perspective of an enslaved djinn. Bartimaeus’s argumentative footnotes turn exposition into comic resistance, while the magicians’ command of spirits gives class conflict a concrete mechanism. Lockwood & Co. moves from political satire toward ghost story and detective fiction. Lucy Carlyle’s narration follows a precarious agency run by teenagers, pairing haunted houses and forensic research with prickly teamwork. Stroud sustains momentum by letting clues emerge through confrontations, banter, and the practical hazards of supernatural work, while rivalry and distrust repeatedly complicate the case.

Series

Lockwood & Co. · Book 1

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Language: English
ISBN: 9780545765879

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