Weeping Willows On the Lake

 1. Dead End in Norvelt A. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gantos, Jack. 2011. Dead End in Norvelt . New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-37993-3 B. PLOT SUMMARY The book is an autobiographical affair that, like the other Jack books, draws on Jack Gantos’s unique ability to get himself into outlandish situations. Jack is grounded for the summer after shooting at a drive-in movie theater (unknowingly as he did not load the gun beforehand) and is only let out of the house to assist his neighbor Miss Volker with her job as a medical examiner. Throughout the course of the experience Jack discovers that the elderly women of Norvelt are dying suddenly and the source can be traced to poison. There are multiple suspects including Miss Volker (who recently purchased rat poison) and Jack’s own mother who made casseroles for each of the murder victims, making the food a possible vector for the poison. Eventually Miss Volker is placed under house arrest by the police when baited traps are discovered