Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose are spending Halloween in Sleepy Hollow, New York, home of the legendary Headless Horseman. They are going to sleep in a cabin, take a haunted hayride, and go to a spooky party near an old graveyard. That's where some people say they've spotted the ghostly horseman.
But strange things start happening that don't seem to be part of the planned Halloween fun. Is there a real Headless Horseman haunting Sleepy Hollow?
Sleepy Hollow Sleepover, the fourth A to Z Mysteries Super Edition, find Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose in Tarrytown, New York on Halloween day. To get into the holiday spirit, the kids read up on Washington Irving and the Headless Horseman, but none of them believe it's anything more than an old story... until they see the Headless Horseman himself outside their vacation cabin. Still, only Josh is truly scared, with the others making an effort to rationalize what they've seen so they can enjoy the haunted wagon ride and Halloween party without panicking.
And so they do, and honestly, it sounds like a pretty awesome party, at least compared to the lame Halloween events that I attended as a child. But everything goes wrong when a arsonist chases off the horses, sets the wagons ablaze, and flattens the tires of all the cars. They find out the next morning that it was a distraction to keep the police and fire department busy while the local bank was burgled. Rather than let the police deal with the situation, of course, Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose investigate... and get themselves kidnapped once again. I'm starting to think they enjoy it.
All in all, it's tropetastic and typical of the A to Z Mysteries series, but it's also an entertaining Halloween-themed mystery that I know I would have loved as a child; it even leaves a bit of a "maybe magic, maybe mundane" mystery hanging at the end to leave the young audience with a bit of lingering fright. Highly recommend to young mystery fans--especially if they enjoy a bit of spooky fun in their stories.
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