Thirteen-year-old October Schwartz is new in town, short on friends and the child of a clinically depressed science teacher. Naturally, she spends most of her free time in the Sticksville Cemetery, which just happens to border her backyard. And that cemetary just happens to be the home of five dead teenagers who quickly become October's best friends.

When Sticksville Central High School’s beloved French teacher dies in a suspicious car accident, October enlists the aid of her dead friends to figure out why. Using October's smarts and the dead kid's abilities to walk through walls and stuff, they form the Dead Kid's Detective Agency solving Sticksville's most mysterious mysteries.

Soon October and the five dead kids find themselves in the middle of a nefarious murder plot - thick with car chases, cafeteria fights, sociopathic math teachers, and real estate appointments - and a zany adventure that could uncover the truth a forty-year-old explosion.