Shirley Temple and the Screaming Specter

This is a strange old book. It’s a Nancy Drew style mystery but the main character is a teen-aged Shirley Temple. Characters in the book recognize her as the famous entertainer and then it’s never mentioned again. There’s one instance in the book where, in order to escape a desperate situation, she needs to utilize skills she had learned sitting in the make-up chair. This is just weird concept. The mystery itself is not that deep and Shirley isn’t even the one who solves it. The whole plot about a haunted lake might have been the impetus of her investigation, but it’s soon forgotten. What the book does have is some wonderful line illustrations by E. Joseph Dreany.