The Great Ghost Hoax

The Great Ghost Hoax by Emily Ecton is a very silly animal mystery for 9 year olds, told by the pets of an apartment block who are extremely bored.

What happens

Butterbean is a sausage dog who has run out of things to do. She's finished her chew. She's pulled all the stuffing out of her squeaky lamb and distributed it carefully round the living room. She's had a go at tunnelling through the carpet (no luck there).

So she flops on her back and wails that nothing exciting ever happens to them.

The others are unimpressed. Oscar the mynah bird points out that he is an International Crime Boss, which is hardly nothing. Walt the cat is busy inspecting her paws. Marco and Polo, the two rats, helpfully suggest that something exciting could happen right now. Or now. Or now.

Then somebody starts hammering on the front door.

It's Mrs Third Floor, who lives downstairs, and she's in floods of tears. The empty flat she's been doing up to rent out has ghosts in it. Strange noises. Things moving about on their own. Fish going missing out of the tank in the night.

So the animals decide to look into it. What they run into turns out to be more of a people problem than a ghost problem, in the shape of two ghost hunters who turn up offering to clear the place out for a sizeable fee.

The real joy is that the animals do all their talking in front of the humans, who haven't got a clue. Mrs Food is trying to calm her poor friend down while Walt crouches behind her offering to go for the eyes.

Butterbean is the best of them. She identifies who's at the door by smell. She's quietly proud of how evenly she spread that lamb stuffing over the sofa. And she still feels guilty about the time Mrs Food slipped over on her sick.

Two things to flag before you start. This is a follow-up, so your reader meets five animals who already have a history together. It works perfectly well on its own and the heist gets explained as it goes, but they'll get more out of it having met the gang first.

And the title gives the game away rather. There's an explanation coming for the haunting, and the people turn out to be the problem. If your reader likes the idea of a ghost story but doesn't actually want to be frightened, that's a good balance for them.

What to read next

If they'd rather start at the beginning, The Great Pet Heist is where these five became a crime syndicate. Mrs Food takes a fall in the hallway, the animals panic about who'll feed them, and Oscar starts making plans.