The Ghostwriter Secret

THE GHOSTWRITER
SECRET

Read all the Brixton Brothers Mysteries:
#1
The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity

SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales
are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's
imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2010 by Mac Barnett
Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Adam Rex

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Book design by Lizzy Bromley

The text for this book is set in Souvenir.

The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally with a Wacom tablet and Photoshop CS3.

Manufactured in the United States of America

0910 FFG

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barnett, Mac.

The ghostwriter secret / Mac Barnett ; illustrated by Adam Rex. — 1st ed.

p. cm. — (Brixton Brothers ; 2)

Summary: Twelve-year-old Steve is investigating a diamond heist but
the case suddenly changes when the author of the Bailey Brothers detective novels
writes him a letter to say that he fears for his life.

ISBN 978-1-4169-7817-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)

[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Authors—Fiction. 3. Crime—Fiction.] I. Rex, Adam, ill.
II. Title.

PZ7.B26615Gh 2010

[Fic]—dc22

2009052021

ISBN 978-1-4424-0956-9 (eBook)

For Paul Saint-Amour, Dan Birkholz,
and David Foster Wallace—three wise men

THE GHOSTWRITER
SECRET

I
T WAS
S
UNDAY
, which was Steve Brixton's least favorite day of the week, and the sun was setting, which was Steve Brixton's least favorite part of a Sunday. But Steve was on his living room couch reading Bailey Brothers #19:
The Strange Case of the Strangest Stranger
, which was part of Steve Brixton's most favorite series of all time: the Bailey Brothers Mysteries.

The Bailey Brothers Mysteries were fifty-eight high-octane adventures featuring Shawn and Kevin Bailey, two quick-thinking, hard-punching teens who never met a case they couldn't crack, a motorcycle they couldn't ride, or an avalanche they couldn't cause and
subsequently survive. Sleuthing ran in their family: They were the sons of the great American detective Harris Bailey, and they were terrific sleuths in their own right.

There were fifty-eight thrilling and perfect Bailey Brothers mysteries in all—starting with Bailey Brothers #1:
The Treasure in Trouble Harbor
and ending with Bailey Brothers #58:
Spacejacked!
—all written by the same author, MacArthur Bart.

MacArthur Bart, a.k.a. America's Mystery King, a.k.a. Steve's hero, had also written the book Steve loved above all others:
The Bailey Brothers' Detective Handbook
. The handbook was packed with Real Crime-Solving Tips—stuff like How to Make a Plaster Cast of a Scoundrel's Shoe Print, and Surefire Methods for Defusing Some Kinds of Time Bombs. Basically all the high-level supersleuth stuff.

Steve had the handbook pretty much memorized, but he still carried it around with him wherever he went. In fact Steve had all the plots to the Bailey Brothers Mysteries memorized, but he still liked reading the books second and third times. Plus it was research, since a few weeks ago Steve had officially opened his own business, the Brixton Brothers Detective Agency. Steve didn't have a brother, or even a sister, but putting “brothers” in the name of your detective agency
was a great way to make it sound totally ace.

Right now Steve didn't have a case to work on, which was why he was lying on the couch—the living room aglow with the last of the day's sun—and finishing chapter eighteen of his book. A gang of car thieves had just captured the Bailey Brothers and was holding the boys in a sea-cave hideout:

“You creeps will never get away with this!” dark-haired Shawn Bailey hollered. “Crime doesn't pay!”

The large lawbreaker with the salt-and-pepper beard looked up from the game of cards. “It doesn't, eh?” he growled. “Then hows come we've got enough tourin' cars and roadsters stashed away in the old barn to make a fortune?”