In Taiwan’s answer to the Thai horror film Senior, a good-for-nothing boy and the ghost of a policeman work together to solve a case.

The narrator of The Phantom’s Agent, a boy who lives alone, is skipping class at home one day when he is startled to discover himself face-to-face with an imposing-looking ghost: a former cop who has received special dispensation from the King of Hell to return to the mortal realm and seek out the murderer who killed him. Since he is only able to assume corporeal form and manipulate physical objects in this youth’s presence, the ghost cop is forced to try and coerce him into helping.

Eventually the youth reluctantly agrees to help assist in the investigation, only to discover himself facing a series of increasingly difficult challenges: taking care of the cop’s old drug sniffer dog, who consumes (and excretes) on a massive scale; climbing through a rat-infested ventilation duct; and confronting a boss of the underworld who can see and hex ghosts (and is prepared to inject him with a dangerous quantity of cocaine if he says the wrong thing). He may need an increase in pocket money allowance – and perhaps an extra life or two – if he’s going to survive.

The Phantom’s Agent is a series of five novels about a pair of utterly incompatible partners. The case they are investigating is a serious one, but the friction between ghost and human is a source of constant entertainment.