Hoping to measure up to his father's expectations at the card table, ten-year-old Anthony Joplin keeps his strategy a secret until he discovers his father has been hiding one that could tear their family apart.

Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure--but when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, she finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out...