208 pages; soft cover; full color

Intrepid young investigators Brennan and Pauline are excited for Christmas break, until they're sent to an extra-credit boarding school called Knotty Pines. After attending their first classes, however, they grow suspicious of the unusually strict headmaster and headmistress, who seem to be controlling their students and transforming them into boneheads and bullies.

On their final night at Knotty Pines, the students are paired up to pledge eternal allegiance to the long-dead Lord Hobb --and to each other -- in unholy matrimony! Isolated from their fellow sleuths, Brennan and Pauline forge new alliances to lift a curse that has plagued the good people of Hobtown for centuries.