Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew 9 – The Halloween Hoax

Carolyn Keene's The Halloween Hoax is a not-too-spooky Clue Crew mystery for 8 year olds, set in a TV studio where the science experiments keep going horribly wrong.

What happens

Nancy's whole class gets to watch Dudley the Science Dude tape his Halloween show, in costume, four days early. Nancy is a dragon, Bess is a ballerina and George is a robot made of clanking tin cans.

It's a disaster. The bubbling witch's brew oozes right across the counter. The egg that's meant to be hard-boiled smashes in Dudley's hand. Then a dozen real bats escape and flap around the ceiling. The taping is stopped, and their teacher decides the show isn't safe for children.

Shelby, Dudley's number one fan, is heartbroken. She's sure the studio is haunted, and she wants the Clue Crew to prove it so nobody blames her hero.

Nancy doesn't believe in ghosts. Not one bit. So she draws two columns in her notebook, one for Ghosts and one for No Ghosts, and the girls go back to look for clues.

What they find is a lot of fun. Glowing green footprints. A compass needle spinning like mad. A trick wall that swings round into a secret room full of clothes from the 1970s and an orange lab coat with Dr Funk-n-Stine on the back. And a science formula that disappears off the page.

The best part is watching the Ghosts column fill up while Nancy tries her hardest to stay sensible. Bess builds her own Ghost Goggles. George starts to wobble too. And every time Nancy thinks she's explained something, another strange thing happens.

It's spooky in a giggly way. There's a mummy that tumbles out of a coffin case onto George, and later a Halloween haunted house with a vampire and a werewolf playing the piano. Each fright gets an explanation, so it suits a child who likes the idea of ghosts more than the real thing.

It's worth knowing that Nancy's mum died when she was three. It's mentioned in passing, as the reason Hannah looks after her.

What to read next

Halloween fans can carry straight on with Boo Crew, which has Nancy, Bess and George dressed as three witch sisters, with a cauldron and a bottle of strawberry bubble bath, auditioning for a TV talent show's Halloween special.