When thirteen-year-old Oz Keiller finds a dead body in his family's Santa Fe, New Mexico, restaurant, he is determined to solve the mystery in which his older brother is implicated, but which also involves their long-dead father, who was accused of being a spy.

Herculeah Jones gets involved in another dangerous mystery when she goes to visit old Mr. Shivers Hunt, resident of the forbidding Hunt House

Thirteen-year-old Ratchet spends a summer in Maine with her eccentric great-aunts Tilly and Penpen, hearing strange stories from the past and encountering a variety of unusual and colorful characters.