"Gone-Away Lake" by Elizabeth Enright (author), Beth and Joe Krush (illustrators) (Gone-Away Mysteries)

Portia always expects summer to be a special time. But she couldn't imagine the adventure she and her cousin Julian would share this summer. It all starts when they discover Gone-Away Lake -- a village of deserted old houses on a muddy overgrown swamp.

"It's a ghost town," Julian says. But the cousins are in for a bigger surprise. Someone is living in one of those spooky old houses.