It's Halloween and the Otherhands are enjoying the Annual Pumpkin Hunt. There's a technique to catching these orange beasties, whipping off their heads and ending up knee-deep in pumpkin goo. The squishy ones are always the best. And pumpkin fun aside there are preparations to be made, at short notice, for the Great Halloween Ball at Otherhand Castle. Minty is all a-fluster. Solstice is busy spraying fake cobwebs everywhere. Valevine is in charge of disorganising everyone's carefully laid plans, and Cudweed seems hungrier than ever and oddly preoccupied with 'fresh brains'. In fact when Silas, Valevine's long lost brother and black sheep of the family, turns up with Samantha and the party is in full swing the Otherhands would be well-advised to check out their guests. It's not long before wily Edgar works out that there's a preponderance of vampires and not all of them have false teeth. Just when he's about to solve the latest mystery at Otherhand Castle, the lights go out...

Sequel to: Lunatics and luck. Followed by: Magic and mayhem.