Synopsis
Molly and Adam aren’t thrilled about their dad’s upcoming birthday. Whether it’s a family curse or just bad luck, the Barnett males have a distressing tendency to drop dead the day before they turn 35. Their mom has a plan, though: a trip to the family’s lakeside cottage. It’s a great idea…until weird things start happening. A problem at work means Mom can’t go. Grandfather’s creepy old desk and papers appear in Molly’s bedroom. A freak fall leaves Dad with a badly sprained ankle. Everyone blames Molly for the accident, saying she screamed for help while swimming in the lake, but Molly knows it never happened. Things go from bad to worse when a strange nurse named Reggie Crankshaft shows up out of the blue to offer his help. As Molly and Adam struggle to make sense of the odd events and figure out what really happened at the lake, their efforts to protect their father grow ever more desperate. This rip-roaring ghost story leaves readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Children's Literature
Molly and Adam Barnett share a special job when they accompany their dad to the family cottage by the lake to keep him from dropping dead. It seems that Barnett men have a tendency to die the day before their thirty-fifth birthdays. The cottage seems like a nice, quiet, safe place—that is, until the ghosts show up. Molly and Adam are stunned to meet their granddad, Ernest Barnett, who is visible only when he is behind his old desk. As they try together to figure out what is going on, Ernest realizes he did not just drop dead the day before his birthday; instead, he was murdered. Molly and Adam are now on a double quest: they must save their father and figure out how and why their grandfather was murdered. How are the two related? Can they trust Reggie, their temporary neighbor who just happens to be a nurse? This fast-paced mystery will engage the interests of young readers as they try to keep one step ahead of the ghosts. This is the first of the "Ghosthunters" triology. Reviewer: Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger