Book ~ "Scared Off" (2021) Barbara Ross

From Goodreads ~ Three teenage girls having a sleepover on Halloween night get spooked when high schoolers crash the house for a party. But no one expected to find a crasher like Mrs. Zelisko, the elderly third floor tenant, dead in the backyard dressed in a sheet like a ghost. 

With her niece traumatized, Julia Snowden must uncover who among the uninvited guests was responsible for devising such a murderous trick.

Page, Julia's 13-year-old niece, is having a sleepover with her friend, Vanessa, at their friend, Talia's house. Things gets out of hand after some uninvited classmates and older kids show up. The night quickly takes a scary turn when the elderly woman who rents an apartment upstairs, dressed up like a ghost, floats down from upstairs and is found dead in the shed in the backyard. With nothing else to do since her family's business hasn't started up for the season and she's not running a restaurant in the off-season anymore, Julia starts to work on figuring out what happened that night.

This quick read (it's a novella) was written in first person perspective in Julia's voice. It's a cozy mystery so there is no swearing, violence or adult activity. The whodunnit came out of nowhere at the end. At the end, there is a recipe that was mentioned during the story for gluten-free pumpkin cookies.

This novella is 9.5 (of 12) in the Maine Clambake Mystery series. It works as a stand alone so you don't have the read the previous ones to know what's going on. I've been reading the series recently and will keep moving through the series.