Hardy Boys Clue Book 07 – The Pirate Ghost

Franklin W Dixon's The Pirate Ghost is the seventh Hardy Boys Clue Book, a mystery for 7 year olds about a haunting that doesn't quite add up.

What happens

Frank and Joe Hardy live in Bayport. Their dad runs a real detective agency. The brothers have something they like just as much, which is their own clue book, and Joe carries it everywhere.

It's the last day of term and Bayport is having a Pirate Palooza. Turn up dressed as a pirate and you get a free doughnut, which is enough to get everybody in an eye patch and an itchy puffy shirt.

The prize in the Talk Like a Pirate Contest is a map to a treasure chest buried somewhere in the town. Jason Wang, who is at school with them, enters with his parrot Crackers on his shoulder. Crackers can squawk a whole song back after hearing it once.

Then a man dressed as Plunderin' Pete tells them about Captain Scurvydog, a ghost who comes back to stop people digging up buried treasure. Jason says he doesn't believe in ghosts. Twice.

After that, odd things start arriving. Crackers begins singing an old pirate song nobody taught him. Pirate coins turn up in Jason's pocket. Jason stops saying he doesn't believe in ghosts and refuses to go anywhere near the map.

Joe opens the clue book and writes "Pirate Ghost, or Pirate Hoax?" at the top of a clean page, and the suspect list starts.

That heading is also why this one won't frighten anybody much. The brothers treat the whole thing as a puzzle from the moment it starts. The chapters are short and the jokes are terrible on purpose, and because Frank and Joe write their suspects and clues down as they go, your reader can keep a list running alongside them.

It's American, so it's fourth grade and a flashlight, but nothing needs explaining.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who takes to this pair, The Video Game Bandit is the first of their clue books. A brand new games console is the star prize at a school fundraiser, and partway through the evening it vanishes.