The book is available at your local bookstore and many online bookshops. Three hundred years before it all began... Tuscany, 1703. The war against Mevolent is in full swing, and the Dead Men are sent to Italy. Not to finally defeat the arch-enemy, but to save him. An apple-sized hole in reality has opened a gateway to hell, behind which a powerful being lurks. And only Mevolent is capable of closing it again. A simple mission, if it weren't for Nefarian Serpine, the man who killed Skulduggery and his entire family thirteen years earlier. Skulduggery Pleasant and the Dead Men are back: in a novella set three hundred years before the birth of Valkyrie Cain. The prequel to the Skulduggery Pleasant series. Bestselling author Derek Landy tells in this prequel to his successful cult series about a time when Skulduggery Pleasant was not yet a skeleton detective, but a kind of skeleton musketeer in the service of the Irish Sanctuary. Additionally, there is a reunion with the likes of Grässlich Schneider, Sarazen Rhue, and Dexter Vex. Dark and humorous at the same time, this prequel is a must-read for all fantasy and Skulduggery Pleasant fans.