Life has been hard for sixteen-year-old Barley Lick lately: he split with his girlfriend, his father died, and now his mother has a boyfriend, a cop named Fred Newton. Not even Barley’s new Great Dane, Stanley, can make things right.
Then Newton wants Barley to use his geocaching skills to help him solve a mystery; helping would mean losing a huge geocaching competition and, even worse, letting his ex-girlfriend Phyllis win. But Barley soon realizes that a young boy’s life may be in danger and time to rescue him is running out.
“A somewhat rambling tale that will most appeal to fellow geocachers.”
“A vivid, visual adventure that will make you want to start geocaching.”
“Grief, geocaching, broken hearts, kidnapping and a Great Dane all combine to make The Degrees of Barley Lick a dizzying helicopter ride through a few extraordinary days in a teenager’s life. … Flanagan has perfectly captured the inner life of a teenage boy in emotional turmoil, bursting with hormones, resentments, and bad decisions. Barley acts first and thinks later. This is an adventure book with a very human hero at its heart, who is navigating an inner landscape that is even more challenging than the wilderness where the geocaches lie hidden.”