Sally McDonald, a friend of Nancy Drew's father, recently purchased a house on Moon Lake in Pennsylvania. The house is the former residence of a Prohibition-era gangster named Mickey Malone. Sally fled from the house in terror on the very night Nancy arrived for a visit. According to Sally, every night a pack of ghost dogs with glowing eyes and mournful howls attack her house. The dogs are believed to be the ghosts of Malone's four loyal Rottweilers. They allegedly vanished into the woods on the day of Malone's arrest and were never seen alive again. Nancy seeks out the truth of Mickey Malone's colorful history amid rumors of buried gold.