Nine-year-old John Avery Whittaker and his family have just moved to the small town of Provenance, North Carolina. It's the 1930s, the midst of the Great Depression. Johnny's father has taken a position as a professor at nearby Duke University. Now Johnny must not only deal with a new school, new friends, and a new bully, but also a decades-old scandal that has taname?rnished the Whittaker family's reputation, and an amazing mystery involving the contents of a musty old trunk. After all these years, can Johnny discover the truth of what happened? And if he can, will it restore honor to the Whittakers—or bring further shame to his family's name?