Hell Breaks Loose Award-winning author by Derek Landy (author)

Italy, 1703. As the war with Mevolent rages on, the Dead Men are dispatched to a town in the Tuscan hills – not to assassinate the Lord of the Dark Sorcerers, but to save him. A rift has opened to a hellish dimension, and only Mevolent is strong enough to seal it and save the world.

A simple mission, then, which turns ever-so-slightly trickier when Skulduggery is presented with the opportunity to finally get revenge on Nefarian Serpine, the man who murdered him and killed his family thirteen years earlier.

Return to the world of Skulduggery Pleasant in a short novel set hundreds of years before Valkyrie Cain is even born, and follow Skulduggery, Ghastly, Shudder, Ravel, Saracen, Dexter and Hopeless as they argue, bicker and battle their way through an army of their most hated enemies in order to save their oldest enemy so they can stop another, brand new, enemy…

And that’s when things get complicated.

Product Details

Catalogue number

572 in Setanta Primary January 2026

Format

Paperback

ISBN

9780008601249

Publisher

HarperCollins

Date published

February 1st, 2024

Accelerated Reader

AR book level: 6.0; Middle years plus; 8.0 points

Other details

320 pages

Condition

New

Author/Illustrator

Derek Landy

Derek Landy is the author of the bestselling, awardwinning Skulduggery books – the funniest dead detective ever!

Before writing his children’s story about a sharply-dressed skeleton detective, Derek wrote the screenplays for a zombie movie and a murderous thriller in which everybody dies.

As a black belt in Kenpo Karate he has taught countless children how to defend themselves, in the hopes of building his own private munchkin army. He firmly believes that they await his call to strike against his enemies (he doesn’t actually have any enemies, but he’s assuming they’ll show up, sooner or later).

Derek lives on the outskirts of Dublin, and the reason he writes his own biography blurb is so that he can finally refer to himself in the third person without looking pompous or insane.