The Hollow Boy

Lockwood & Co., Book 3

By: Jonathan Stroud

Narrated by: Emily Bevan

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

As a massive outbreak of supernatural visitors baffles Scotland Yard and causes protests throughout London, Lockwood & Co. continue to demonstrate their effectiveness in exterminating spirits. Anthony Lockwood is dashing, George insightful, and Lucy dynamic, while the skull in the jar utters sardonic advice from the sidelines. There is a new spirit of openness in the team now that Lockwood has shared some of his childhood secrets, and Lucy is feeling more and more as if her true home is at Portland Row. It comes as a great shock, then, when Lockwood and George introduce her to an annoyingly perky and hyperefficient new assistant, Holly Munro.

Meanwhile, there are reports of many new hauntings, including a house where bloody footprints are appearing and a department store full of strange sounds and shadowy figures. But ghosts seem to be the least of Lockwood & Co.'s concerns when assassins attack during a carnival in the center of the city. Can the team get past their personal issues to save the day on all fronts, or will bad feelings attract yet more trouble?

Danger abounds, tensions escalate, and new loyalties form in this third delightfully terrifying adventure in the critically acclaimed Lockwood & Co. series.

©2015 Jonathan Stroud (P)2015 Listening Library

excellent writing and performance

great writing and story telling a must for any stroud fan look forward to hearing the next book as always.

Not a great narrator

I agree with most of the reviews- I don’t like the narrator for this one. She did a crappy job of creating voices for the characters- and the voice she does for the skull is incredibly annoying…wasn’t sure I could even finish it with her ANNOYING whining versions of the characters

Narrator is pretty awful. Listen at 1.1 speed and that helps.

Great books and characters. We are sorely missing the narrators from the first two books though. My family—from kids to adults—is trying to tough it out with the over-the-top, congested voices the narrator does for both George and Lockwood. And the voice for the Skull? Nails on a chalkboard.

Exceptional Storytelling!!

Great follow up piece with enough plot twists to keep the story interesting and characters that are endearing. The fear factor is on point and the world historically rich while wonderfully ghoulish.

Epic world building

Now we start to see what Lockwood and co are really made of. We also begin to see the true depth of the problem. We're at the top of the roller coaster now and it's about to get wild. I so appreciate the master story telling at play. There was a cat fight brewing the entire book and Jonathan Stroud did not disappoint.

Good character driven book

Jonathan Stroud writes great characters, and they sometimes overwhelm the story of the book. Not that one notices that much! His Bartemeus series is an example. The Djinn was so much fun that I rarely noticed the relatively shallow story line.

Here too, the characters are so much fun that I rarely notice the story. The story writing style is exquisite, and while JS is no Raymond Chandler, he does have an excellent writing style.

In the third book, the characters are back doing ghost hunting. A new character is introduced and there is tension between the new character and Lucy. We all move along and eventually more haunted mysteries are solved. There you go - that's most of the book (plus a cliffhanger ending). Not much of a story - but the style and each individual haunting is fascinating and I listened to the book flat in 2 days! The book is a definite upgrade on book 2, which I thought lagged a bit.

So, overall, it's a worthwhile book and good addition, but I would really like JS to move the story forward as well.

PS Can we bring back the previous narrator or someone else? Emily Bevan did an adequate job, but her pacing and pronunciation wasn't as fun as the previous ones. Maybe she was trying to be authentic, but pronouncing "skull" as "schaull" (heavy british accented), was just distracting.

Great read again

Once again, Jonathan Stroud has written a masterpiece. Enjoyed it from first page to last. I hope the series continues, as I really can't wait to see how Lucy's talent develops. Will be watching for news! !

One of the best YA series available

As always, Stroud presents YA fiction with superior writing to almost any of his competition in the genre. I didn't find that this addition to the series was at all off the mark, despite reviews to the contrary. As this story is told from the perspective of a girl, I didn't find any of her Lockwood crushing out of place and would have in fact, found it kinda fake (and lacking) if she hadn't had a crush on him. This also makes her rivalry with the new girl a believable thing. She's an emotional character, so it makes complete sense.

Addressing the meat of the story, the new ghost encounters are very exciting. As usual it's mildly hostile to Christianity, but nothing terribly bad (just a brief, mild incident earlier on in the novel). I really liked the introduction of new questions regarding Lucy and The Problem and am left wanting more. There is a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, but it was a good place to stop. I will be excited to read the next installment.

Lastly, the narrator is just fine. She is definitely different than the first two but I didn't find her irritating or flat. She did a good job and her voices were easy to get used to.

Another great Lockwood and Co

I was a little disappointed that there was a new narrator for this book, but she turned out to be great! She has a more northern English accent which made some of the characters stand out more when she used it. There's a lot of good action that made me not want to do listening when I got to work (I listen during my commute).
I feel like this book was much more angst than the others, maybe reflecting that the characters are growing up. But I really enjoyed it and was sad that it was over.

Most in love

I loved this book. This is the third book of LOCKWOOD AND CO . This was my first time doing the audio and it was great. Thank u I had a great time listing to this book.