Welcome back to Hobtown, the charming but bleak rural village whose placid exterior belies the surreal underbelly teeming below. . . . The second must-read volume of the page-turning series that the New York Times calls \'forceful and haunting\' starts here in its fully colored edition from creators Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes! Intrepid young investigators Brennan and Pauline are excited for Christmas break, until they\'re sent to an extra-credit boarding school called Knotty Pines. After attending their first classes, however, they grow suspicious of the unusually strict headmaster and headmistress, who seem to be controlling their students and transforming them into boneheads and bullies. On their final night at Knotty Pines, the students are paired up to pledge eternal allegiance to the long-dead Lord Hobb?and to each other?in unholy matrimony! Isolated from their fellow sleuths, Brennan and Pauline forge new alliances to lift a curse that has plagued the good people of Hobtown for centuries. (W) Kris Bertin (A/CA) Alexander Forbes