On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

Growing up in a city where candy is illegal and sugar is scandalous, 12-year-old detective Nelle Faulker takes the case of a candy gangster's missing teddy bear before her client's own disappearance leads Nelle to a shady underworld of sweets smuggling, back-alley deals and storefront firebombs.

"Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living. So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don't want Wrecker to call for help--in fact, they'll pay him to forget he ever saw them. Wrecker would be happy to forget, but he keeps seeing these men all over Key West--at the...

Sarah tries to smuggle a New Testament into England in order to save the life of William Tyndale, a man imprisoned for translating the Bible into English.

While helping her crippled grandfather by diving for sponges from the family boat after the death of her diver father, Alexandra discovers that someone is using their sponges as a hiding-place for smuggled cocaine.

Sent to live with relatives in New Orleans during the War of 1812, eleven-year-old Elisabet determines to find a smuggler's treasure to ransom her imprisoned father.