The After School Detective Club

Lucy, Max, Charlie and Joe aren't looking for new friends – they have too many of their own problems to worry about. But when the four of them, and Charlie's faithful dog, Sherlock, spot a phantom figure on Southwold beach one winter's night, they are thrown together to unravel a mystery that none of them expected. Just who is the ghostly spectre that walks the sands of Southwold with a lantern in his hand? What is the connection to the ancient curse that hangs over the town? And is the respectable Quentin De Havilland everything he pretends to be?

Joe can't believe his luck when his dad rents a castle for their Easter holidays—but is devastated when his mum receives a better invitation and the trip is cancelled. Determined to have his holiday, Joe develops a plan to go with his friends instead. The castle is everything the friends had hoped for, but it's not long before they hear strange noises underground and notice yellow eyes lurking in the forest. And when Sherlock falls through some rotten boards and into an old well, they discover an ancient box, containing a 200-year-old notebook and an incomplete treasure map.

Max is distraught when he receives a letter from the school telling him he has to go on a weekend of cycling and camping for the Duke of Wellington awards scheme. But things vastly improve when his friends agree to come with him. It isn't long before they find adventure–or adventure finds them... They make a friend called Byron and set up camp in a forest near to his home. But that night they wake to see strange lights and a fierce wind blowing through the trees.

Things in Southwold get off to a bad start! Max has to do extra lessons while Charlie has been roped into helping with the decorating. Meanwhile Lucy loses an important race to a new girl in her school, Miranda Fitchwitherington, who seems to enjoy being as mean as possible to Lucy and the rest of the gang. And there is more bad news–when the gang meet Captain Tom, walking his own dog, Pugly, he tells them about an outbreak of pet thefts in the area.