Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost

The Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries #27

by Ann M. Martin

When the Hatts, a family that disappeared years earlier under mysterious circumstances from the old Stoneybrook lighthouse, suddenly return and move in with the Kishis, Claudia wonders what secret they are keeping. Original.

Genres: Middle Grade, Mystery, Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult, School, Collections

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1996

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Grace Chan]

Oh Claudia, my junk food-loving, stylish and artsy spirit animal. I'm on a mission to read all of the Claudia books in the BSC series, and this one was a fun read told in Claudia's sassy voice.

[FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH]

this is my first time reading this book!

in this mystery that is not written by typical mystery ghostwriter Ellen Miles and is instead written by the ghostwriter I’m just so damned sick of, Peter Lerangis, a family that moved away from stoneybrook years ago, the hatts, are planning to move back. they have to buy a house and fix up the long-abandoned lighthouse they still own (wait is stoneybrook a coastal town? how have they never mentioned this before?), and while working on that they stay with the kishis, who clearly don’t have room for a 5-person family to stay with them for weeks, but oh well. the hatts are sort of personae non grata in stoneybrook because of a mystery that happened surrounding the lighthouse before they moved. they’re also personae non grata to claudia, because their moving in means she has to share a room with janine, and because the hatt kids are kind of jerks. the hatts keep getting threatening notes at the kishis’ as they fix up the lighthouse, and claudia discovers that the lighthouse’s neighbor mr. langley really hates them and blames them for his son having died at the lighthouse years ago. he had gotten locked inside and jumped out the window because he had claustrophobia. he hit some rocks on the way down and died of head trauma and overexposure. claudia and the other bsc members notice mysterious sounds in the lighthouse, and eventually they find a note with a gurgile on it that says "if you survive the night you’ll be one of us." the bsc do some sleuthing and discover that back when the hatts used to live in stoneybrook, there was a gang that used the gurgile (/gargoyle if you want to be particular about it) as their logo, and they forced potential members to stay in the locked lighthouse overnight to prove they’re gutsy enough. one of the guys who was in the gang way back when is upset that the hatts are in town because he thinks they’ll uncover that it’s basically his fault the langley kid died, so he’s been sending them the threatening notes. a minor subplot is that janine and her boyfriend jerry are on the outs because janine is more interested in steve hatt, who is popular and makes janine vaguely popular by proxy. but in the end janine goes back to jerry when she realizes steve has a wandering eye. a more major subplot is that the veehoff comet is coming to town and the bsc is hosting a comet party. all the bsc kids subscribe to old-timey superstitious theories about how the comet is an omen (straight out of the tell the bees exhibit at the museum of jurassic technology). kristy uses lisa simpson logic to convince them to stop freaking out. she says that she notices that when she eats waffles it gets dark at night and that when she opens her locker with her right hand on fridays, they have no school the next day:

the kids of course realize then that they’re silly and that correlation does not mean causation, because the kids are smarter than homer simpson:


highlights:
-comedian abby, on the veehoff comet potentially turning everyone into vampires: "vee hoff to sock your blood!"
-claudia thinks that astrophysics is "astrofistics" which is definitely my new favorite porn genre
-comedian abby, on the hatt family: "I know them. porkpie, slouch, stovepipe, and top." this isn’t a great pun or anything but I laughed out loud because it reminded me of when in the third monkey island game you meet a guy named goodsoup and you have to pretend to be his cousin by introducing yourself as heart beef 'n' potato, vegetable, split pea with ham, or won-ton.
-janine is mad from getting stood up so she blasts music and angry-sings along but it's classical music so she's singing "hrrrm hm haaa" and banging loudly on her computer keyboard. I love janine and her one dimension.
-the kids’ idea about the comet makes me think of the exploding tires in The Shooting Star (and I like anything that makes me think about tintin)
-janine becomes popular because she’s hanging out with steve hatt. which I guess means that she’s all that was right all along.
-I definitely also kept thinking about free hat...to make whomever is sending the threatening notes let up on the threats, they just need to melt their icy hearts with a cool island song!

lowlights/nitpicks:
-claudia calls kristy's neighborhood "chichi" but thinks that astrophysics is either "astroturfics" or "astrofistics" -- this is classic peter lerangis, to make characters unrealistically speak like adults one second and then uncharacteristically not know basic words (like yeah I get that claudia isn’t school smart, but I don’t buy that she doesn’t know the word physics after living with janine, she just probably thinks it’s spelled fizziks)
-claud mulls over whether abby is a "native new yorker" because she's from new york state. answer: no. if she moved somewhere farther away that wasn't a suburb of nyc (i.e. not connecticut) it would be appropriate to say she was from new york, when asked, but it would not be appropriate to say she was a native new yorker. new yorker implies city.
-claud thinks steve is super cute but janine ends up sort of almost dating him and claud is jealous. but how old is he? janine is in 11th grade, right? if he's in 11th grade then he's way too old for claud. but maybe claudia doesn’t care that he’s too old for her, because stacey’s been a bad influence what with Boy-Crazy Stacey and Stacey's Big Crush
-laura, one of the hatts, acts like she's so cool all the time, but at one point she looks at a mirror and says "gag me" because she needs to redo her makeup. GAG ME? the valley girl song came out in 1982. peter lerangis, you are just so out of touch.
-in one scene, claud has to move the bsc meeting out of her bedroom because of janine and it's all over the house because it’s overly crowded. this is super frustrating, but also kind of unrealistic. I’ve always gotten the sense that being vice president of a successful business is the only thing the other kishis approve of that claudia does, and they are usually really supportive.
-janine has a new music cd-rom. huh? do you mean music cd? I’m trying to understand what a music cd-rom would be. is it like when I would put my copy of s.c.i.e.n.c.e. by incubus into my computer and it had a built-in game that I could play?

claudia outfit:
-"I was wearing a white high-collared dentist's shirt and a loose-fitting Chinese silk jacket, cinched at the waist by a bright-orange scarf, over tight black flared pants. My hair was gathered on top of my head with an orange bandanna."

snacks in claudia’s room:
-yodels in her night table drawer
-cherry cream chocolates under her bed
-caramels in her closet among her hats
-milky ways between her mattress and box spring

[Claude]

this was such a fun BSC mystery!!

[Halida]

I think this book is fine for me, but not sure if it's suitable for younger readers who are supposed to be the market. A test to join a high school gang that ended up killing someone is rather grown up, isn't it? Certainly not something I want my pre-teen cousins to read.
Hatts kids are brats! Well, maybe not all 3 of them, but the older Hatts kids are. And all the while Claudia & Janine had been so kind to them. Okay, just needed to get that off my chest!
Loveee the Veehoff Comet party. I think it should've been the main theme, just make up a mystery about it! Hahaha. Anyway, I did some googling and it turns out Veehoff Comet and Shelmadine Veehoff do not really exist.
I found lots of surprises in this book, but not because of the mystery. I haven't read that much of BSC to find out that Claudia was sent back to 7th grade (I really need to read #101. So far I don't think it's a good decision to make her character dropped out), Dawn went back to Cali, and there's a new sitter named Abby.

[Tiffany Spencer]

Claudia and the Lighthouse Ghost
Claudia overhears her parents discussing old friends (the Hatts) coming to stay with them. We learn that something happened at the lighthouse years ago. And that people in town still remember what happened that night. Her father doesn’t think Alex Hatt did anything wrong. The Hatt’s deperature caused a lot of controversy.

Claudia remembers Caryn, Laura, and Stevie from when she was younger. Jamie remembers Mr. Hatt owned the lighthouse. He also owned waterfront property and worked with their dad on investments.

Today, Janine is stressed about finding a headband to wear on a date with her boyfriend Jerry, and her calculus professor’s assignment of building organic chemistry models. At the BSC meeting, they talk about the upcoming Veehoff Comet and superstitions. Kristy comes up with the idea for a comet-viewing party for their charges. They discuss if they’ll need a telescope, where the best viewing spot is, and how dark the area needs to be. Claudia suggests the lighthouse.

This leads to talk about rumors and suspicions that it's haunted. Claudia shares that the Hatts are returning. Kristy also remembers them. Maryanne remembers when she was younger; she and her father drove past. She saw flashing lights everywhere and saw police cars and ambulances. Her father spoke to a policeman. His mood changed. When she asked, he refused to tell her what happened. He warned her to never ever go someplace where you know your not supposed to be.

At dinner, Claudia's father reveals that the Hatts will arrive in two days and are struggling financially. So, he’s invited them to live with them for a couple of weeks, maybe more. The parents will stay in the den, Stevie will stay in Mimi’s old room, Laura and Caryn will stay in Janine’s room. This means Janine will be staying in Claudia’s room. This does NOT make either girl happy (and they let this fact be clearly known). Claudia even considers briefly running away,

Janine’s night doesn’t get any better. She’s stood up by her boyfriend. When he does call, he says he forgot they had a date. Janine doesn’t want to hear it, slams the phone down in his face, and storms off to her room. Janine moves in Sunday and Claudia’s space starts to feel cluttered, cramped, and no longer hers. Claudia finds herself instantly attracted to Stevie (whose of course handsome now). Claudia finds out from Caryn that the move was because of what Stevie did at school. She heard he got expelled. Laura defends him, and says he just got into “a little trouble”. Janine also thinks Stevie is cute, which surprises Claudia. She turns angry thinking of how Janine has taken over her room. Now she’s trying to move in on the boy Claudia wants.

During lunch, we learn that the Hatts still own the lighthouse and either want to sell it or fix it up. Stevie jokes that he wants to have a party in it after dark. Mrs, Hatt says she doesn’t need the reminders. Stevi jokes about what do they expect to find… dead bodies. Mrs. Hatt snaps at him. Clearly, it’s a sensitive topic.

At school, Laura is obsessed with the cheerleaders and the jocks. She confesses to Claudia that she feels like an alien, and at least expected people to know her. After school, Mr. Hatt takes Laura, Caryn, and Claudia to the hardware store to get paint for the lighthouse. Mr. Hatt says he had a difficult time getting into the lighthouse that morning because of the locks, chains, and razor wires. But he was told the building was in good shape. She choses sand for the top and crimson for the bottom.

Abby sits for the Hobarts. Jessi brings the Braddocks over and Buddy. They all play comet pretend games. Buddy starts a role-playing game about aliens and Earthlings. The kids argue whose house will be the best to view the comet, until Abby reminds them that Kristy will have the final say. Ben says comets caused Noah’s flood, killed dinosaurs, and can block sunlight for thirteen days. He adds a dramatic legend about ghosts rising from graves.

Jerry calls Janine, but she tells Claudia to tell him she’s not there. Claudia finds out from Janine that Stevie is planning a Christmas party in the lighthouse. Claudia tries to discourage her, but Janine just brushes her concerns about the creepy neighbor (Mr. Langley) and the lighthouse off.

At the BSC meeting (which they have to hold in the bathroom because the house is full), Mallory reports she saw someone trying to get into the lighthouse the previous night. When her dad stopped the car, the person disappeared. Janine screams. There’s a box on the welcome matt and inside is a charred baseball cap with a random note inside. The letters spell out “Go”.

There’s a envelope addressed to Mr. Hatt. Inside it is a torn piece of a lighthouse photo. There’s also a second cut out message. Mr, Hatt immediately suspects Mr. Langley. He confesses they had a “misunderstanding” years ago. He says that Mr. Langley isn’t exactly stable. The BSC decide to ask their parents what they remember, and meet back up tomorrow.

Kristy and Abby ask Charlie what he remembers. Charlie reveals that some boys are mad because Stevie is having a Christmas party before they got a chance to invite girls to theirs. Later, Claudia finds scissors and magazine clippings in Laura’s room. Maryanne and Stacey are hired to help clean the lighthouse later. A new graffiti message is found on the lighthouse.requesting that the Hatt’s leave.

While Stacey is cleaning, she hears a whisper that says “Don’t”, but when she looks, there’s no one there. She panics and runs upstairs. In an old article, Jessi and Claudia find a heading that says “Local Boy Icy Victim”.The boy is Adrian Langley, who was sixteen. Adrian fell inside the lighthouse from 20 or 30 feet, The second-floor window was open. The door was locked. He was found half dead in the water by Mr. Hatt. He died later from head trama and exposure.

Mr. Pike surprises his kids with a big telescope for the party before heading out to a concert. Claudia adds another suspect to her list when Jeanine tells her she told Jerry she might be interested in Stevie. She imagines he’s sending threatening letters out of jealousy. On “Painting Day” Kristy expresses sympathy to Mr. Langley. He accuses Mr. Hatt of locking his son in the lighthouse, knowing Adrian had claustrophobia. He also accuses the Hatts to use lawyers to steal his property (caling that the lighthouse belongs to him).

Claudia finds a piece of paper sticking out of a broken tile. Then she hears a voice say Nooo! Abby and Kristy say it wasn’t them. Claudia finds out from Laura that their dad gave Stevie permission to have the party. When they get back, they find another letter was found. Jerry arrives. Janine screams and runs upstairs. Jerry gives Claudia a note to give Janine. There’s a lighthouse and a strange man’s face on the note. (Laura is mad at Stevie because she’s not invited to his party).Laura’s cashmere sweater goes missing. Stevie leaves some newspaper on the stove, and there’s a burning smell. Janine recognizes the drawing on the note she found as the gargoyle over the high school entrance.

There’s a BSC meeting. Stacey says the gargoyle face looks familiar. They decide to scout the high school. Jessi notices the postmark is from Stanford. Also that the sender is young based on the fonts. They have the party at Maryanne’s. Some of the kids wear costumes. All the kids worry about myths (about health) connected to the comet. When Kristy shows up, she tells them David Micheal is sick. This is all the proof they need, and they panic. She has to explain that ancient people believed this but they were wrong. The comet appears. Claudia tears up. Buddy isn’t impressed.

The BSC visit the HS and decipher that the note is connected to someone from the HS from the drawing’s connection to the gargoyle at the school. They find out that the gargoyle’s name is Fred, and that the students used to have Fred parties where students dressed up as the gargoyle. This happened when Adrian Langley was a sudent. The tradition ended when a small group adopted Fred as their symbol eight or nine years ago. They see Paul Langley talking to Charlie. He admits he recognizes the drawing, but not the handwriting. Paul takes them to his house.

The BSC sees a photo of Adrian with the other tough guys from SHS. There’s a gargoyle head visable that suggests they were in the Fred gang. They see smoke pouring out of the lighthouse. Stacey screams. Claudia calls 911. Paul tries to stop them from calling Mr. Hatt because he doesn’t want him over there. Claudia sees a message scratched in the dirt. STAY AWAY OR ELSE!

The Hatts arrive. Stevie thinks someone is trying to scare his friends and him. Mr, Hatt says the party will still gon on. He says everyone should come just to be defiant. Claudia has a theory. The note says If You Last One Night In the Lighthouse, You Will Be One Of Us. Adrian was trying to join the frank gang, and this was an initiation. Only something went wrong. They study the faces of the guys in the photo in case they show up at the party and memorize them. Kristy een makes copies.

While at the party, Janine is heartbroken when she sees Stevie walk off hand and hand with a red-haired girl. She then wonders where Jerry is. Claudia spots one of the guys from the picture (a blond with a gap) upstairs. He asks can he help her.Claudia is stunned. He slips away.

Claudia finds Mr. Hatt and Mr. Langley outside arguing, and tells them there’s a stranger at the party that doesn’t belong there. The stranger flips the switch, and everything goes black. The man tries to escape, but ends up falling off the side of the lighthouse. Mr. Langley catches him. He attends Adrian was trying to join the Gargoyles. He was the leader (Patrick). Adrian got claustrophobic and fell from the second floor. He was behind all the letters. There was a secret message in the lighthouse, and he was trying to get it back before it was found.

Rating: 5. Even just reading the title of this one, I knew it would be my least favorite of the Claudia mysteries. I'm not even sure why. It was just a little lackluster.

[Ruth]

The Stoneybrook Lighthouse was boarded up under mysterious circumstances years ago, and shortly thereafter the owners left town. Now the Hatt family has returned to Stoneybrook with plans to restore and sell the property.

The Hatts are staying with Claudia's family while they get settled. When the Hatts begin receiving threatening letters, Claudia and her friends want to know why. Do the letters have something to do with a tragic accident that took place at the lighthouse all those years ago? Claudia and the rest of the Baby-Sitters Club are determined to find out.

The Baby-Sitters Club books are formulaic, but, judging by the popularity the series enjoyed during the 1990's, it's a formula that works. I devoured the series as a child and enjoyed revisiting this book as an adult. Little details such as Claudia's secret candy stash and poor spelling, Kristy's love of sports, and Mallory's huge family came rushing back to me as I was reading and brought a smile to my face.

[Jaclyn]

Fun quick mystery. Lol at claudia and Janine having to share a room. Love the Janine love triangle subplot - she definitely deserves better than Jerry OR Steve! There's a nice tragic backstory grounding the mystery though the culprit's motivation was pretty slim.

Adrien died 9 years ago. That note daring him to spend the night was there untouched the entire time? And the guy behind the note only panicked about it now? AND in his panic, his plan was to scare the Hatts away with threatening notes??? Why not go undercover as a Helper in the renovations? Or why not assume Adrien took the note with him when he jumped in the water? Or for that matter, why not look for the note any time in the last nine years???

[V. Arrow]

Now this one did NOT pull its punches. Damn.

[Kara]

BSC Mysteries are always ridiculous. But good for a laugh.

[Ciara]

this is another book in which stoneybrook is conveniently located on the water--on the long island sound, to be precise. apparently there is an old lighthouse out on the edge of town. it has fallen into disrepair & is covered in graffiti. claudia makes it sound like it's been that way for decades, but it's really only been like eight years or something. i love how this town just expands & contracts, throwing up new landmarks & adding schools & shit whenever it's convenient for the plot.

claudia overhears her parents talking about the hatt family. claudia vaguely remembers them from when she was a child. the hatts have three kids--two girls that are both a little younger than claudia, & a boy who would be around janine's age. claudia doesn't really remember anything about them, but apparently they moved away like eight years ago & are now planning to move back. mr. kishi wants to extend some hospitality to them & let them stay with the kishis while they find a house, but mrs. kishi is reluctant. can i just ask what the hell happened to the grand tradition of finding a place to live before moving to a new town? the kishis put up so many would-be homeowners that they should really just quit their jobs & turn their house into a bed & breakfast. anyway, claudia overhears mrs. kishi say something about how "everyone knows what the hatts did" & "they were run out of town". claudia freaks out a little, thinking that the hatts may be murderers. because that's the logical conclusion.

she asks janine what janine remembers about the hatts & janine says something about how they own the lighthouse. claudia wonders if the hatts perhaps engaged in some kind of satanic sacrifice in the lighthouse or something. when the kishi parents tell janine & claudia that the hatts are going to be staying with them for a while, claudia is anxious, but both she & janine manage to hold their fire until the kishi parents tell them they will be sharing a room during the hatts' visit. noooooo!

when the hatts arrive, claudia & janine are both surprised that the teenage son, steve, is a fox. janine has been having some troubles with her boyfriend, jerry, constantly angsting about how claudia just has no idea how difficult it is to sustain a relationship. claudia gets even more pissed off when janine comments that steve is cute & starts flirting with him. she thinks that janine should back off & let the single sister have him. or...maybe steven can decide for himself if he is interested in either sister? what a novel idea!

the hatts seem like okay people, but claudia is still worried that they are murderers. mr. hatt declares his intention to fix up the old lighthouse & maybe try to sell it or something. the babysitters club offers to help. i don't know why. i guess because they think a mystery is afoot & spending some quality time at the lighthouse will help them solve it. some dude living next door to the lighthouse is enraged when he sees the hatts are back town. he's all, "go bck where you came from, hatts! we know what you did!" the babysitters are all, "what did he do?" but it takes them almost the entire book to think of their usual go-to solution for every mystery: go to the library & check out the microfiche.

away they go, & they find an article about a teenage boy who jumped or fell from the top of the lighthouse & into the sound. he sustained head injuries & exposure. he was fished out of the sound by mr. hatt, but died of his injuries. he was a stoneybrook high school student, & angry dude's oldest son. the babysitters are confused. apparently angry dude holds mr. hatt responsible for his son's death, but the article says that mr. hatt is the one who rescued him from the sound. what's going on?

the hatts are also receiving anonymous threats & messages that say things like, "i know what you did," &, "go home, hatts." the babysitters draw up a list of suspects, which includes angry dude (motive: thinks mr. hatt killed his son), steve (some indication he got in trouble at his old school, may be a deranged maniac), jerry (possibly jealous of janine's burgeoning relationship with steve & trying to scare the hatts away), one of the hatt daughters (claudia saw scissors & bits of magazine in her bedroom).

also, sometimes when claudia is working on the lighthouse, she hears a spooky, ghostly voice saying things like, "iiiii'm heeeere."

finally one day claudia finds a note in the lighthouse basement. it's all dusty & old-looking. it features a weird drawing of some kind of gargoyle thing & it says, "if you can last the night, you will be one of us. --fred." she draws the gargoyle thing a few times, trying to get it right. janine sees her working on it & says it's a good likeness--apparently it's the gargoyle thing over the top of the entrance at stoneybrook high school. the babysitters head over there one afternoon to look at it & they run into charlie, who explains that the gargoyle is called fred. then a teacher wanders over & tells them that stoneybrook high school kids used to form secret societies based around fred, but the administration banned them after some "tragedy" occurred. hello? babysitters? the solution to this mystery could not possibly be any more obvious.

the babysitters then see the younger brother & the kid that died & convince him to let them come over so he can tell them about his dead brother & show them his old yearbooks & shit. turns out he was interested in joining one of the secret societies. the brother shows them a photo of some smiling kids & mentions that his brother is not in the photo. the babysitters deduce that the photo is of the secret society the brother wanted to join--the very society that set him the challenge of staying in the lighthouse overnight. dud apparently had claustrophobia & panicked. he tried to climb down the side of the lighthouse to get out (he was locked in), but fell into the sound instead & died. the babysitters decide that the creepy notes & shit must be from one of the secret society members...because that makes sense, right? they memorize the kids' faces so they will be ready to move if any of them turn up at steve hatt's big holiday party at the lighthouse, to which the entire town has been invited.

sure enough, one of them does. claudia corners him & he tries to climb down the side of the lighthouse. he slips & falls, but is okay. the police come & the dude confesses to everything: he dared dead kid to stay in the lighthouse & then pretended not to be involved after dead kid got dead. when he heard the hatts were coming back into town, he decided he needed to scare them away so he could get into the lighthouse & collect the evidence of his involvement (the note claudia found) before they did. he's been the one sending them the creepy notes & vandalizing the lighthouse. the ironic thing is that if he'd just left the lighthouse alone, the hatts may have never come back. the only reason they did come back is because the lighthouse was falling into disrepair, due in large part to being constantly vandalized by the dude trying to break in all the time. anyway, angry dude is all, "mr. hatt, i forgive you. you didn't lock my son in the lighthouse. you tried to save him." mr. hatt is all, "i know, dude. i told you so." steve is not a juvenile delinquent. he was suspended from his old school when a bunch of his friends stole some shit & he efused to rat on them. the younger sister was just making a collage or something. steve snakes janine for another girl & she goes running back to jerry. happy endings. except that i guess the creepy voice claudia was hearing really was the voice of dead kid trying to point someone in the right direction to solve the mystery. because that happens.

[Reuxbot]

I was in the process of being lightly teased for reading these books as a kid ("It's just not something I would associate with YOU" was the gist of it), when I remembered that I always preferred the mysteries and wanted to see if I could get one to read as an adult. Naturally I chose one with a ghost in it expecting the ghost to turn out to be a cat or something.

I'm not too sure about the specifics but this one must have been written long after I'd boxed the BSC up and hidden them in my closet, because this book was missing my crush Dawn and she had been replaced with someone I had to google. But it was a Claudia book so I was able to soldier on. Sadly Claud still can't spell and it's a little annoying, but overall it was a light and entertaining mystery with the occasional annoying kid. I found out I still can't help but roll my eyes at Kristy whenever she turns something that could be a fun party with her friends into a babysitting event. I get it you're in the babysitters club but you're also 13, Kristy!

[Alex]

This is kind of a weird one, but it also might be because I recently read super early BSC books and there's such a huge contrast in quality. But, even with that, I do think this one is just kinda weird.

First of all, since when does Stoneybrook have a lighthouse?

Secondly, Janine (one of my favorite characters) is completely out of character here, trying to make her boyfriend jealous by flirting with the Kishi's houseguest. I did have to giggle when she "angrily" listened to classical music to show how mad she was.

Ben Hobart is another one completely out of character. Yes, he's 11, but in the BSC 11 years old are basically 25 year olds, so Ben egging on all the little kids on and trying to scare them doesn't vibe with the character we've always seen.

Am I the only one who laughed at Abby riffing on the word Veehoff?

The solution to this one is actually pretty dark for a BSC book, and I seem to remember that these last few mysteries get a lot more serious than, say, a missing diamond ring or actors pretending to be jewel thieves.

[Liesl FIND ME ON STORYGRAPH]

It is so nice to have Peter Lerangis back in the saddle (not that I mind Ellen or Nola, but there's something special about Peter).

Anyway. What a harrowing tale. Death by gang initiation is NOT something I'd ever see in a BSC novel. Also, since when does Stoneybrook have a lighthouse?? Talk about a retcon. Also also, it was hilarious to watch all the kids in Stoneybrook get freaked out by comet superstitions. Though I have to ask, what is UP with Ben Hobart in this book? I felt like he was stirring up trouble for no reason.

I completely forgot that Claudia goes back to the seventh grade for a brief stint, but I feel like it has such little bearing on the BSC canon as a whole that it hardly matters.

[Ashley]

Definitely a weaker mystery; the Hatts were annoying, the comet sub-plot was annoying, the random guilty party was annoying, the ghost sounds in the lighthouse were annoying. Heck, even Janine was kind of annoying, but in that annoying sister kind of way. (I actually kind of loved seeing Claud and Janine have to share a room, and I loved the idea of straight-laced Janine losing her shit over a boy, but it was better in theory than execution.)

[Tonia Christle]

Not gonna lie, this one is a pretty intense read for a BSC book - even a mystery. I liked the insight into Claudia and Janine's lives and the idea of something from childhood that kind of tied everyone together but that no one really remembered clearly. But the actual mystery once it was solved was...really intense.

[Gabriel]

I’m 6 1/4 and I thought those teenage girls weren’t that good or interesting part of the story.
I like when the guy climbs down the Christmas lights. What the boy didn’t think was a ghost was a ghost. And I liked the smoke bomb.

[JH]

Refreshing to read a Peter Lerangis book, and I like the Claudia outfit description (just one) but the mystery was a little weak. I actually had to read the last three pages twice to understand what had happened- and it still didn’t make much sense.

The comet subplot was cool.

[Devon]

All of these books are short but this one felt a little *too* short and the side story felt particularly shoehorned in. I did enjoy the main mystery and reveal, but I wish we'd had a little longer to build tension and uncover the secret.

[Cloud]

I enjoyed the mystery and the backstory behind it, but reveal of the culprit and his motivations was not very good. I wish his reasoning for why he was trying to drive the Hatts away had made more sense.

[Ds]

ITA-ENG

Un discreto mystery, con una Claudia meno fastidiosa del solito.

A fairly good mystery, with a less-annoying-than-usual Claudia.

[Leah]

This one felt very different from the other mystery books. It's obvious another ghostwriter was used.

[aem]

A bit darker than usual!

[Christina]

Read my recap at A Year with the BSC via Stoneybrook Forever: https://www.livethemovies.com/bsc-blo...

[Jen]

Sweet nostalgia.

Spookier....and funnier than normal BSC. Enjoyable.

[Sarah Thornton]

Surprisingly dark

[Stephanie]

Actually more entertaining than I'd thought. Claudia and Janine have to share a room!

[Sue Ann Dashnaw]

Pretty cool book
love the stories

[Amanda Reads]

The mystery was intriguing enough and I enjoyed reading from Claudia’s perspective

[Brenda]

Still working my way through the entire series!

[Leigh]

Another just okay addition to the BSC mysteries. Apparently there's an old lighthouse in town who knew? The family that used to own it left under mysterious circumstances and are now returning because their son was kicked out of school. But someone doesn't want them back. As I said semi interesting would've been better if there had been a twist at the end. Also kind of dumb to squeeze 5 more people into the Kishi house which is far from Kristy's mansion. A sub plot has Janine falling for the son of the family that moves in and avoiding her boyfriend Jerry. The b plot is the charges having a party to look at the Veehof comet as it comes close to earth. A few have superstitions about it, it makes you sick or will hit the earth. Not bad but still kind of boring.