The Dead Kid Detective Agency

Ghost and wacky weirdness with a helping of Canadian history.

October Schwartz is a 13-year-old goth girl trying to fit in at her new high school.  But that’s not easy.  Not only is October the victim of relentless bullying, she must cope with the death of her favorite teacher, who is killed in a freak “accident” involving a car lift in the school’s auto shop.  Unsatisfied with the official explanation of her teacher’s demise, October teams up with the ghostly teenaged residents of a nearby cemetery to investigate.

This book is relentlessly quirky: October’s ghost pals bicker constantly and, when not otherwise occupied, put on Broadway musicals for a nonexistent cemetery audience.  October’s best (living) friend is a dedicated goth and curling enthusiast.  Her math teacher, an ex-military martinet, compares mathematical computations to active combat.  The narrator is snarky and Snicketesque.  And Canadian history is tossed into the mix freely, ranging from facts about United Empire Loyalists, the Underground Railroad, Francophone Montreal, the Dionne Quintuplets, and, most significantly, the Quebec Liberation Front, a 60s era radical group that precipitated a national crisis.

Read this if you want a mystery that’s way out of the ordinary.