One could say this is a typical Scooby-Doo adventure/mystery. That is not necessarily a bad thing. In this case all the elements of a classic Scooby mystery are present. We have a secluded place, several possible suspects and a 'ghost' of some sort. To make things more interesting the venue for the mystery is an old castle that has been shipped over from Scotland and rebuilt. During dinner the power goes out and in the darkened dining room a ghost of the original inhabitant of the castle makes an appearance and says anyone who does not leave will be forced to stay in the castle for eternity. He then disappears, apparently taking the current owner of the castle with him. The Mayor, who was one of the guests leaves but intends to come back with the police and a tow truc. that latter due to the fact the Mystery Machine is broken down. The other two guests, an entrepreneur who wanted to obtain the castle to use for a tourist attraction and a lady who wanted to have the castle shipped back to Scotland where she feels it beongs. That leaves the Mystery, Inc. gang along with the servant of the missing owner and the ghost in the castle. The ghost makes another appearance, the gang finds some clues and Fred comes up with a trap. In other words, everything is normal and we end up with yet another unmasking. This the formula we have come to expect and of course to keep the customer satisfied there should be no deviating from the formula.
Yes I knew some of what was going to happen and if one thinks about it the actual identity of the ghost isn't that hard to figure out. However the fun here is in how the story is told and Mr. Gelsey did a good job on that account. One comment, this edition was prepared for McDonalds as one of the book given away instead of a toy with Happy Meals. I daresay there were some young readers who were happy to get this one. Happy reading.