Spend another adventurous summer with Jack McGuinn

The boys are back in town. Authors Dave McVeigh and Jim Bolone make another return to Mackinac Island in their new book, “MisGuided,” the second prequel to their widely popular 2021 novel, The Dockporter,” in which luggage hauler extraordinaire Jack McGuinn gets wrapped up in a plot that involves bringing golf carts to the island. Blasphemy.

When we last saw McGuinn in the first prequel novel, “Somewhere in Crime,” he was an 11-year-old paperboy on the island during the summer when Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour were filming the cult-classic movie “Somewhere in Time.” McGuinn was able to save the movie and cement his name in the island’s lore.

“MisGuided” jumps forward to 1984. McGuinn, now 16, is toiling as a lowly busboy at a café on the island. He has plans to make the leap to the more profitable post of dockporter at one of the island’s less prestigious hotels, but when that falls through, he lands an alternative job as a tour guide at historic Fort Mackinac alongside three ill-fitted compatriots.

It’s questionable whether this new band of irregulars is up to the task, and when they blow their audition, they turn to a Monty Python-style satirical approach to telling history. Just imagine Napoleon Bonaparte sailing an armada to Mackinac Island.

However, the schtick becomes so popular with tourists that the boys — to the delight of their boss and the governor of Michigan, who sees them in action — continue the improbable improvisation.

The story really picks up when the boys learn about a holy grail of sorts: the lost chalice of French Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette. A rich pizza baron is on the move to create a tourist destination similar to Mackinac Island on Beaver Island, which everyone else finds abhorrent. The Pizza King has plans to make the chalice a centerpiece of his new resort attraction. The misfit tour guides want the chalice to stay on Mackinac Island, and in a “Goonies”-esque plot, they rally together to keep the treasure hunt alive.

Who knew resort living could be so stressful?

Though McVeigh and Bolone write long distance, they communicate over the phone, which helps them recount some of their youthful and outrageous activities as dockporters. Bolone was certainly integral in writing “MisGuided” since he spent time as a guide at Fort Mackinac. McVeigh’s parents owned a cottage on the island.

Once again, the authors have taken a wacky, fun approach and captured the amazing summer flavor of Mackinac Island and its often-quirky people. The plot ideas for this series appear to be endless.