New York Times best-selling author Aaron Reynolds delivers an "entertainingly spooky romp" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) about Rex Dexter, who is itching to have a dog ... but ends up with a pet chicken.

One hour and fourteen minutes later, the chicken is dead (by a steamroller), Rex is cursed (by the Grim Reaper), and wild animals are haunting Rex's room (hounding him for answers). Even his best friend Darvish is not going to believe this, and that kid believes everything!

Rex's uninvited ghostly guests are a chatty, messy bunch. And they need Rex to solve their mysterious deadly departures from the Middling Falls Zoo before it happens again. But how?

"In this entertainingly spooky romp, Reynolds tempers his morbid premise with the absurdity of Rex's situation, the ghostly entourage's distinct personalities, and a hilarious, simultaneously formal and sarcastic, narrative voice."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)