I've been reading this series in order, but I'd only made my way through the first twenty or so when I skipped ahead to this. (I'm doing an October reading challenge where one of the tasks is a book with a Halloween cover, and it's surprisingly difficult to find one!) I was surprised to see how much time had passed - not for the kids, they're still roughly the same ages they always are. But there was mention here of a cell phone being dropped into a character's pocket, and that jarred me a bit. It was really the only hint that this book wasn't written in the same time period as the originals, but it's still kind of weird, seeing such a contemporary reference!

Anyway, it's a fun little story about a haunted farm. I thought I had things figured out on page twelve, but The Pumpkin Head Mystery had a little more complexity to it than some of the other Boxcar mysteries I've read, and there were a number of plausible suspects. The book ended, it must be said, on a very forgiving note. I'm not sure that I would have been as understanding as the farm owners!