Fun middle grade read. Love the mystery -- with humor, quirky characters, a crazy dog, and Prohibition Era history woven in.

Keenan has lived all over the world but nowhere quite as strange as Centerlight Island, which is split between the United States and Canada. He is living with his Dad while recovering from TB. His new friend ZeeBee is fanatical about the island's history and her beloved dog Barney whom she is sure was murdered. Keenan begins to undercover what really happened to Barney and come to appreciate his life on the island. ( )

ZeeBee has lived on Centerlight Island, which is split between the US and Canada, her entire life. Her notorious dog, Barney, died a few months ago. Nobody believes ZeeBee's claims that Barney was murdered until Keenan moves to the island. ZeeBee and Keenan investigate Barney's death, but everyone on the island hated Barney and had a motive for his death. ( )

This book was a fun read, and it was extremely interesting to me because I live quite close to where Centrelight Island would be... if it actually existed, which it almost does. I had to answer a lot of questions from my grandson about what in the book is real and what isn't, and then I was so intrigued that I had to read it myself. This is what I told him. The geography of the book is closely based on fact, but not quite. Stag Island is a real place, as close to Corunna, Ontario as the fictional Centrelight Island is to St Clair, Michigan (which would be Marysville in the real world; St Clair is a few miles downstream). The real-world island, unfortunately, has no bridge, despite the fact that you could almost throw a rock from Corunna to the island; its ferry service is non-scheduled and connects only to Canada. Its status as a not-quite-Canadian-not-quite-American territory is complex, and Korman's version is not the truth of the matter, but makes at least as much sense as the real story! Unfortunately there's no school on the real island; it's a lot smaller than Centrelight and mostly has summer residents. But it would be so much fun if it was true. And finally, all the stuff about rum-runners and Prohibition is true. Mostly. Probably. A lot of illegal liquor crossed the river, back in the day, for sure.

This really is an enjoyable book about friendship, dogs, and a mystery. Like many Gordon Korman books, it's enjoyable by people of any age, pretty much from the age of the middle school protagonists on up. Korman has always written books with strong female characters and co-operative boy/girl friendships, right from the first Macdonald Hall book, and I'm very happy to see that once again in this book. ( )