Haunted Mysteries Books In Order

Publication Order of Haunted Mystery Books

The Haunted Mysteries series is a series of thriller, mystery, and children’s book written by one of the award winning and best-selling novelists of America named Chris Grabenstein. This series is comprised of a total of 4 books, which were released between the years 2005 and 2011. The series is included under both the young adult and children’s book genres. Except the third book of the series, all the other series have won the prestigious Agatha Award. It debut book has also won the Anthony Award and has even been included in the list of the top ten crime fiction novels for the youth, which is prepared by Booklist. The Children’s Books Council and the Association of International Reading have also included the debut book in the Children’s Choice List. Author Chris has introduced the chief characters in the series in the form of Zack Jennings, his father, and his stepmother named Judy Jennings. The series revolves around the happenings in the lives of the members of the Jennings family, who encounter haunting mysteries throughout the series one after the other. As the series progresses, they are shown trying to solve the mysteries and get themselves out of the unwanted entanglement.

The first book written by author Chris in the series is titled as ‘The Crossroads’. It was published by the Random House Books in the year 2008. Author Chris collaborated with Tim Boowop in this book, who contributed as the illustrator. The plot is set in the United States and features Zack Jennings, his stepmother, Judy Jennings, and his father. At the beginning of the plot, it is shown that Zack moves back to the hometown of his father along with his family. They do not seem to be aware that the new house that they have moved to, has an old and dark history. Around 50 years ago, one crazy killer had caused an accident that had killed 40 innocent people near the crossroads. The killer himself died in the accident when his car crashed fiercely with a nearby tree. Since that day, his free malevolent spirit has been living in that tree and has inhabited it as his permanent residence. When the Jennings family starts living in their new house, which is located close to the tree, a huge lightning strikes the tree during a storm. This causes the spirit to get released. In anger, the man’s spirit decides that his evil spree is not yet over. He decides to get into someone’s body and the first person that he sees in his sights is Zack Jennings. The spirit chooses Zack Jennings as his target because he wants to take revenge from the descendants of all those people because of whom he lost his life, and one among them was Zack’s grandfather. He was the first one to get killed in the accident by coming under the car of the crazy killer. Therefore, the spirit thinks of making Zack suffer for his death because of his grandfather.

After the immense success of the book all across the world, the wife of author Chris, named J.J. Myers, read the audiobook that released afterwards. The audiobook was later officially all over America in the month of May of the year 2008. For her performance in reading out the audiobook, J.J. Myers was awarded with a Headphones Award from the AudioFile magazine. Many well known critics reviewed the book positively and praised author Chris for coming up with this unique novel. One of them was Connie Fletcher, who reviewed for Booklist and said that it is an absorbing psychological suspense book as well as a rip roaring ghost story. It switches viewpoints among humans, ghosts, and trees in an astonishing manner. The Kirkus Reviews said that the book has brief and fast paced action chapters with tight plotting, a few murders, and a sympathetic lead character. The plot is kept moving with the help of all theses elements and long buried clues related to the mystery of the old tragic incident get revealed with the help of kindly phantoms. The introduction of a friendly ghost in the story by author Chris turns out to be a surprise for the readers. The overall plot appears to be so exciting that the fans of the genre didn’t mind the implausibilities mentioned in the story. Another reviewer named Jessica Miller said that the riveting tale in the book is written in the form of short and easy to understand chapters, which make the book a good choice even for the reluctant readers. As the story moves further, the main characters continue to grow closer to each other. The bad guys also reveal great depths of their insanity and wickedness. Such positive reviews helped the book to gather many more readers over the years, who enjoyed the adventure and scare factor of the book.

One of the other exciting books published in the series is titled as ‘The Smoky Corridor’. It was also released by the Random House publication in 2010 and depicts Zack Jennings and his family as the main characters. In the starting sequence of the story, Zack Jennings is depicted as getting prepared to start his studies in a new school. His father had also studied in the same school many years before. He tells Zack about the stories related to the haunted closet of the school’s janitor. Zack is also told about a dead crossing guard’s specter as well as the Donnelly brothers, who had perished in an accidental fire break out. However, Zack’s father does not know the fact that Zack has already come across the ghosts of the Donnelly brothers. They have warned Zack about the evil zombie that lives under the school. His fear of zombies makes Zack study about them and he comes to know that while they eat only the corpses, if some living person happens to get bitten by them, that person also turns into a zombie. Before his midterms begin, Zack deals with a couple of zombies is an attempt to protect one his friends from them. Due to his involvement, Zack lands himself in the target list of the zombies and as a result, he has to deal with a new haunting problem in his life. Once again, author Chris has done a fantastic job in writing the funny and frightening plot of the book. The success of this book once again proved the mastery of author Chris in coming up with such stories for young and child readers alike. The deadly situations and quirky characters of the book proved to be an inspiration for the many interested and reluctant readers.