Claim to Fame by Haddix

Margaret Peterson Haddix does so many good books, and they are on a variety of topics. I'm not surprised that she was asked to finish the Thirty Nine Clues mystery series. Claim to Fame is about Lindsay, who was a child star until she started hearing voices. She can only hear what other people are saying about her, but it distracted her to the extent that she quit acting and moved to her deceased mother's hometown with her father, a reclusive college professor. When her father dies, she is kidnapped by well-meaning boys who think her father is abusing her, and is helped by Roz, a girl her own age, and Mrs. Mullins, her guardian and a woman who also hears voices.

Even reading the dust jacket took a little of the suspense of this out of this for me-- suffice it to say that there is a larger mystery behind Lindsay's voices, but I don't want to say any more. I'll definitely be buying this, even though the end was a bit precipitous and wrapped up a little too neatly.

This title by Betty Ren Wright is out of print. Another decent, low level ghost story, The Ghost Comes Calling finds Chad in a cabin near a lake that is haunted by the ghost of a man who was involved in a tour bus accident with many town children on board. None of them were hurt, but the town turned against the man. When Chad and his father restore the man's abandoned truck and turn it into a piece of play equipment for the town, the ghost is put to rest. Nothing says "safe play place" like an abandoned truck!