THE RETURN OF SKELETON MAN

It’s been one year since seventh-grader Molly Brant rescued her parents and escaped from a tall, skeletal man posing as her great uncle. She was certain her kidnapper was the legendary Skeleton Man, who had such a voracious appetite he consumed his own flesh and ate his relatives. Man or monster, his body was never found, and Molly and her parents are still haunted. Their ordeal is beginning to seem distant as they turn a business trip for Dad into a vacation at Mohonk Mountain House in the Hudson Valley. Molly endures a couple of creepy moments before discussing her feelings with her parents, who also feel watched. During a snowstorm and a Day of the Dead/Halloween party at the resort, the skeletal stranger kidnaps Molly again. She knocks him over a cliff with a bulldozer, but again no body is found. The scares are lame, and the tension’s as non-existent as the plot. The addition of Central-American mythology might add a little interest, but it’s likely even fans of the first will be left wondering why Skeleton Man bothered to return. (Fiction. 9-14)