"The Empty Grave" by Jonathan Stroud

Well, that was a fitting conclusion to the series.

Basically, |the leader of the premier ghostbusting agency, who's supposed to be the granddaughter of one of the first ghost-hunters, is suspected to actually just be the original one who's somehow used spooky stuff to keep herself alive. So we break into her tomb to see if she's actually inside it or if she's somewhere else|.

The second part involves the main characters |using the afterlife-that's-probably-actually-an-in-between-life (the character George agrees with me on that point) as a fast travel system to escape their house/base, which is under siege. Except it turns out that time goes slower in the inbetweenlife, so it's really just a slow travel system. And they have to leave via the only other exit they know of: the one in the villain's house|.

So our protagonists get to confront the main villain who's behind all this (which, yeah, technically spoilers, but this is the final book so it would be kind of weird if they didn't.) And the series actually ends really satisfactorily; |the villain is defeated, but that doesn't automatically radically alter the world I've come to know and enjoy. There are still ghosts, but it's implied they're going to start going away. And, wonder of wonders, all our main characters are still alive! Despite Lockwood's suspected death wish and some grievous bodily harm to some of the others. (Lucy's Sarcastic Talking Skull of Mild Spookiness is not fine, but he was already dead.)|

Some series would end this by |having all the ghosts just magically go away when the BBEG dies|. And while that would |probably be better for the people in the series's universe|, it would also |feel really weird and out-of-place and not mesh with the tone of the rest of the series|. So all things considered, I prefer the somewhat open ending of this book.

The series as a whole is... probably pretty scary? I've been tagging it as "horror" all this time, but it honestly reads more like an urban fantasy where the fantasy happens to be angry ghost monsters. Maybe it's actually utterly terrifying and I've just somehow gotten desensitized to that.

It also doesn't shy away from adding new primary characters as the series goes on (the skull is added in The Whispering Skull, Holly Munro arrives in The Hollow Boy, and |longtime antagonist Quill Kipps joins the protagonists in The Creeping Shadow|). Granted, it doesn't |kill anyone important off|, but I don't think anybody minds. (Although I did read that the author meant for |Quill Kipps to die|, but changed it because it didn't quite mesh with how the series was going.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for violence.

4 stars.

(Endnote: This has been Spooky Books with Sam. Tune in next time to hear Kittens say, "What? I haven't read it.")