Zoran Drvenkar alias Victor Caspak/Yves Lanois Die Rückkehr der Kurzhosengang (The Return of The Boys in Shorts) Bloomsbury Kinderbücher & Jugendbücher, Berlin, August 2006, 430 pp ISBN: 3-8270-5175-4 Island, Rudolpho, Snickers and Zement, four eleven-year-olds from Okkerville, Ontario, make up the Kurzhosengang. Having saved their class when their school was swept away by a hurricane (in the first book), the gang is now famous across Canada. As the novel opens, the boys have just appeared on a live chat show in Toronto to talk about their heroic deeds. Arriving back at Okkerville train station in the dead of night, the four friends go their separate ways. The next morning Zement is missing. The remaining gang members set out to find him, helped by the most beautiful girl in the world, the town's ugliest dog, a werewolf-cum-Mountie, a guardian angel, and a group of assorted ghosts. Their quest takes them from the depths of an icy lake, via a hospital morgue, to a lonely hut on a snowy clifftop. They are forced to do battle with an evil Sheriff, a malevolent undertaker on the lookout for extra business, and their archenemies the fearsome Pauli-Gang. When they finally find Zement their problems are just beginning… This is a thrilling adventure story that deals with the universal themes of fear, courage, and the battle between good and evil. It is reminiscent of the Harry Potter series, with its down-to-earth ghosts, violent bullies and benevolent monsters, but its style and approach, a curious fusion of fantasy and realism, are entirely its own. The author's trick of pretending that the book was published in Canada and that he, Drvenkar, is not the author is in the spirit of the whole. He is an excellent writer who, above all, understands what children like: a first-class, rollicking good read.