THE MIDNIGHT CURSE

Multiple ghosts and confusing chronology muddle this tale of two children left to roam an old mansion they’re about to inherit while their mother is parked somewhere in suspended animation. (Or maybe not, as she reappears at the end, oblivious to the fact that days have seemingly passed.) Not only is Blaxston Manor a bewildering tangle of arbitrarily numbered stairways and dusty rooms, but as fraternal twins Charlie and Lacey discover, at least three ghosts haunt the premises: an angry poltergeist who lays a silly curse on Charlie (he has to sleep in water or he’ll shrivel into a mummy), a young would-be burglar who died of fright decades before and a friendly tour guide who walks through walls but can also, paradoxically, put away a hearty breakfast. Fortunately there’s a village psychic to help with the curse….unfortunately the plot is so weighted with contrivances and shredded with gaps in logic that it falls apart. (Ghost story. 10-12)