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Very very interesting. I still prefer the first because the part where they are in the Red Room and the Inner Staircase are some of the most terrifying parts I've ever read. Forget Stephen King.

But it's really nice to see the world come alive in this book, and I do enjoy the new characters being introduced and fleshed out.

A lot of the interesting questions has already been discussed, but like Sent I'm kinda disappointed there isn't more on the Problem itself. And I too would like to know more about the inner "adult" society because it just dominates far too much of Lockwood and Co. 's life.

I have a feeling that like in Ptolemy's Gate we will see the world at its full development in the third book. A good thing about this series is that there is just so much more character to flesh out of everyone, except for Lucy really. Even she can change very quickly.

I cannot wait for the skull to play an even bigger role. The nature of these Visitors is still very unclear, and interestingly unlike in Bart, where the magicians didn't care much for the nature of these ghosts, it was because they were very much under their thumb. Here, its the opposite, the ghosts have completely twisted society and all of its power is devoted to unraveling its mystery. Also like in Bart, I feel that they will conspire to try and utilize the ghosts in a very nasty manner. As everyone has pointed out, the Problem is worsening and likely due to meddling. Here in whispering skull we see that we had Bickerstaff meddle with ghosts to see a window into the afterlife, and that was long before the Problem existed.

Also I think we will see Kipps become an important ally to Lockwood and Co, and I think their characters, like George, will develop quite nicely. We did see Kipps come out a little at the end. I think Ned and Kat (like Nat and Kitty... coincidence?...Yea probably) will have interesting backgrounds, since right now Ned is just muscle and Kat humourless. Dunno about Bobby.

All in all fantastic.

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I gotta agree that the Red Room and Screaming Staircase were scarier than the Bickerstaff dénouement . (Although, the rats at his house were pretty damn creepy.)

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I agree that TSS was more more terrifying, but I think we'll see enough of that in the finale. In the meantime, I hope we'll begiven more clues about the problem itself, also can't wait to see how accurate our theories about the orpheus society are.

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^ Well we do have 4 books to go through. I feel like the first book was a set up for Lucy and the whole idea of agents fighting the problem. The whispering skull begins to bring up interesting questions about the Visitors, and a deeper look into a society completely revolved around them.

I don't remember much about the Orpheus Society. There wasn't mention of them in WS if I recall correctly, so maybe eventually I'll reread TSS /spoiler]

Nero wrote:

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^ Well we do have 4 books to go through. I feel like the first book was a set up for Lucy and the whole idea of agents fighting the problem. The whispering skull begins to bring up interesting questions about the Visitors, and a deeper look into a society completely revolved around them.

I don't remember much about the Orpheus Society. There wasn't mention of them in WS if I recall correctly, so maybe eventually I'll reread TSS /spoiler]

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The Orpheus Society is only named in Whispering Skull, in the discussion in the library between Penelope Fittes and an unknown third party.
There's some theorising about what exactly the Orpheus Society are and what they're up to in my post on this page of this thread.

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Oh, a note on your post, you say that DEPRAC isn't in on the Orpheus society due to Barnes' confusion, but I think that a company as big as DEPRAC has to at least suspect something. It might just be that only the higher-ups are in on it, and not the simple inspectors. I think that Orpheus society is kind of a special OPs branch of the police force, even though they clearly do more than that.

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It's certainly possible, and indeed likely, that DEPRAC knows who the Orpheus society is and some of what they're doing. I just don't think Orpheus is sharing the results of its research etc with them, or they'd be using it on the front lines - DEPRAC as a government agency has no incentive not to hold technology back to gain advantages over competitors or whatever, because it doesn't have competitors per se. And if, as I suspect, Orpheus is involved with the worsening of the Problem, DEPRAC can't be sure enough of that to act on it, or they would have; they're still law enforcement.