Elderton is under attack! French fries are disappearing from ovens, fryers, and freezers. Potatoes go missing right out of the bin in the middle of the day. No one ever sees the thief. The police are baffled.

Eleven-year-old Dotty Morgan is Elderton's best (only) supernatural sleuth, a role for which she's trained since a gnome stole her mother's fabric and Dotty took the blame.

Eager to solve her first case, Dotty investigates the mysterious thefts and uncovers a sticky-fingered phantom. But that discovery creates more questions. How did the phantom come to be in Elderton? Why potatoes? Why are the adults in town acting so weird? And what are the strange charms that appeared in the school cafeteria the same day the phantom materialized?