This middling haunted-house mystery pits narrator Tommy Donahue and his two pals against an unscrupulous schemer who wants to buy the abandoned old Parnall house from the city. Eavesdropping by the kids, who play on the property, reveals that the buyer is really after something valuable in the house, and will tear the place apart to find it. To save their playground, the three kids decide to find the item themselves. As such plots will have it, their search involves spending nights in the reputedly haunted house; and Tommy, who draws the first night, is startled by the appearance of a disembodied head and a dripping wet lady. Soon, however, both ghosts arc working with the kids to foil the sale, and Brittain abandons chills for some dotted-line detection. It's not a patch on Brittain's tales of old-time witchery in Coven Tree, but then there are always summer readers for such undemanding mysteries.