Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Zack Jennings sees dead people. This "gift" puts him in the crosshairs of the many mysteries that haunt his father's Connecticut hometown where Zack, his dad, and his stepmother have recently moved. His school, for instance, has a dark history—two boys and a teacher died when they were unable to escape from a smoke-filled corridor where the boys had supposedly been playing with matches. This is only the tip of a sordid iceberg, however; the school was founded over a hundred years before by Captain Horace P. Pettimore, a Civil War officer and voodoo master, in order to lure one special child into his clutches so that he can enter the child's body and return to life. All signs point to Zack, and when Pettimore's pet zombie reawakens, guardian ghosts flood the school to protect the children they love, mostly by giving Zack tips on how to help. Meanwhile, a nasty man looking for Pettimore's stolen Confederate treasure is making fresh ghosts in pursuit of his quest, a janitor disappears, and the real story behind the smoky corridor puts all adults in the vicinity in serious danger. Although the plot seems complicated, the individual pieces, players, and motivations are split into short, fast-paced chapters. They're also masterfully negotiated so that even inexperienced sleuths can follow the fates of Zack, his friends Malik and Azalea, and a host of spirits as they solve [End Page 19] various codes and thwart the nefarious doings of the long-dead and their still-stung descendents. There's some gore and people do get killed, but for the most part, they're the people who need killing, and the ones who are innocent victims seem pretty content in their new status as spirits doing work for the folks "upstairs." As the third entry in an award-winning series, this mystery requires no knowledge of the previous books, but readers new to Grabenstein will be eager to check out Zack's other exploits.