Greetings From The Graveyard
(43 Old Cemetery Road #6)
By Kate & Sarah and Klise
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014
160 Pages
| AGE RANGE: | 9-12 |
| SCARY STUFF: | None |
| VIOLENCE: | There is a burglary |
| SEXUALITY: | A man and a female ghost living together have adopted a boy |
| ADULT TOPICS: | Love letters are used as blackmail |
The famous authors of 43 Cemetery Road, Olive C. Spence and Ignatius B. Grumply, are starting a new business! Identifying a need for “cards in rhyme for difficult times,” the family begins designing greeting cards for awkward occasions and when things go badly– illustrated, of course, by their adopted son, Seymour Hope.
Nadia S. Richenov, a lady who once turned down a marriage proposal from Ignatius, is back in the picture now that she smells Iggy’s writing success. Meanwhile, two con-artist convicts have escaped from prison in Peoria and are headed straight for Ghastly, Illinois! Seymour keeps worrying that the new folks in town who have also started a new business look just like the convicts. But why would scam artists sell security systems?
An art appraiser, Art Smart, visits with his show What’s it Worth?, and declares the portrait of Olive hanging in the parlor of Spence Mansion to be worth a million dollars. Boy does that perk Nadia’s ears! She offers to nix her plans to write a tell-all gossip book about the scandalous past she and Ignatius shared… if he will hand over the painting.
Offering to sell a tell-all book about me to Paige Turner is one thing. Luring my innocent son into your web of deceit is another thing entirely…
The intrigue begins as burglaries begin in Ghastly and Olive invites her old employee, T. Leeves, to return to service… as a ghostly butler! A race for the painting begins as the two criminals, Nadia, and Nadia’s new partner in blackmail –none other than Iggy’s editor Paige Turner—all make a play for the million-dollar painting.
The latest installment in the 43 Old Cemetery Road series lives up to its predecessors, a comedy meets arsenic and old-lace mystery for the seven to twelve year-old set. It introduces new characters to the usual cast, continuing the adventures of a reclusive author and his ghost writer companion. Kids who like mild suspense will enjoy this not-at-all scary ghost story conveyed through newspaper clippings, letters, and text messages.
  |
  |
  |
  |
