Review in Conversation: The Case of the Angry Ghost

Rachael King’s second Violet and the Velvets mystery novel for children, The Case of the Angry Ghost, follows hard on the heels of its predecessor. Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff was released in March and was promptly shortlisted for the 2025 Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Alasdair: It's a really good book.

Erica: Featuring Violet Grumble, neurodiverse singer and guitarist, both novels follow the fortunes of Violet’s band as they battle for a place for their music and themselves. It's BandChamps time! But strange happenings are afoot. Curtains twitch, unusual noises abound, ghost sightings are reported, and the sound system is going haywire. All signs point to a problem, most likely a ghost. Violet and her band make it their mission to find out what’s going on. After all, they’re good at mysteries, and not averse to poking around where they shouldn’t be.

Alasdair: I liked the--what's that word? representation in it. There’s a LGBTQIA character who is ‘they’. There’s a character with two mums. And I liked the way it was misleading—the book told me that this was happening, and then it teased you with another possibility, and then the truth hit with a bam. The story moves fairly quickly. I didn’t feel like putting the book down.

Erica: What did you think of the characters?

Alasdair: It's always good to have a controlling, annoying character in a book. There’s got to be one that’s a bastard. Then there’s the generally annoying ones who are being dragged along with the nasty character but don’t particularly like what they’re doing. This is like real life. Then the good guys, there’s Violet and the Velvets. They’re growing and changing. One of the characters is getting brave enough to go out, losing their shyness.

And it was funny the way the teacher was permanently distracted so they could all do as they liked.

And the illustrations?

Pretty cool. But there’s a guitar with 8 strings. That’s not so good. The illustrator’s used shading to show one character with a red face from sunburn. That must have been tricky to do.

What’s your favourite part of the book?

I loved it when the culprit embarrasses himself. (I can’t tell you any more because it would be spoiling the story. But it slays.)

Do you think there should be a third Violet book?

Yeah. The books are funny. There should be more books so I can laugh at them. And also because they’re interesting.

What would you say to the author, if you could?

Make a third book.

If you had it in your school library, who would you give it to?

Year 3s and 4s, maybe Year 5s, with a good sense of mystery. I think they would like it. It was a bit easy for me but I do like easy books sometimes. My sister read it too, she's 13!