Four Miles to Pinecone [Paperback]

He was an eyewitness to a crime that his best friend committed. . . . 

“It all started the day school ended”

That was when my English teacher decided not to flunk me—if I wrote a long story during my summer vacation. My name’s Tom Barry. I’m sixteen, and I really do want to be a junior next year at the high school in St. Paul where I live. But with my full-time job at Mr. Kerr’s grocery store, I didn’t think I’d have enough time to do it.

But by the end of the week, the paper seemed small potatoes. You see, Mr. Kerr’s store was broken into—and my best friend Mouse was involved. I saw him, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be a fink.

I kept mum because it was right about then that I was invited to stay at my uncle’s resort near Pinecone. It’s a real neat place in the Minnesota woods, and I figured I would cool out there. And then I found that they have crime just like in St. Paul—but this time the stakes were much higher. Suddenly, my life was on the line. . . .Jon Hassler was born in Minneapolis in 1933. He received degrees from St. John’s University in Minnesota, where he was an English teacher and writer-in-residence, and from the University of North Dakota. The author of many widely acclaimed novels—Staggerford, Simon’s Night, The Love Hunter, A Green Journey, Grand Opening, North of Hope, Dear James, Rookery Blues, Dean’s List, The Staggerford Flood, The Staggerford Murders, and The New Woman—Mr. Hassler passed away in March 2008.Chapter 1
 
 
 
Summer is over.
 
I hope I never have to live through another one like it.
 
First, I flunked English. Then there was the break-in at the grocery store that put Mr. Kerr in the hospital and me out of work. And finally, a three-hundred-pound goon tried to run melSˇ