Griswold is shot by two thugs in a BART station, and his handmade copy of The Gold-Bug is accidentally discarded nearby.

Emily Crane and her family arrive in San Francisco for yet another of their annual moves across the country.

Emily tries to tune in to Griswold's radio announcement, learns he is missing, and then James tells her he was shot.

Emily finds the discarded Poe book at the BART station and claims it as a Book Scavenger find, leaving her player card.

Barry and Clyde return to the BART station, spot the kids, and chase Emily, James, and Matthew away.

Emily discovers the Poe book is unregistered on the Book Scavenger website and that its typos spell out hidden words.

Emily theorizes that Griswold deliberately planted the Poe book at the BART station to secretly launch a new game.

Emily and James visit Bayside Press, where Griswold's assistant Jack gives them a tour of Griswold's private office.

Raven confirms Emily has found the first clue to Griswold's new game and hints that a second story reveals the next clue.

Barry and Clyde stake out Emily's school, spot her and James, then chase them down twisty Lombard Street.

James accuses Emily of neglecting his cipher challenge, calls her a bad friend, and walks away from the treasure hunt.

Emily and Matthew search Dashiell Hammett's former home and find a raven statue hiding a copy of The Maltese Falcon.

Emily discovers that rival player Babbage is actually her teacher Quisling, who then confiscates the Poe book.

The kids dig up a buried metal box at Portsmouth Square and discover an announcement that they have won Griswold's game.

Remora is arrested after his nephew Barry refuses to harm the kids, and Emily's parents decide the family will stay in San Francisco.

The story begins when publisher Garrison Griswold is shot by hired thugs in a BART station, accidentally leaving behind his handmade copy of The Gold-Bug. Twelve-year-old Emily Crane, who idolizes Griswold, stumbles across the discarded book and becomes determined to solve the puzzle it contains before her beloved Book Scavenger game disappears forever. As Emily and her new neighbor James Lee follow the chain of literary clues, they are pursued by the same thugs who attacked Griswold. The stakes rise when the villain behind the attack is unmasked and the kids race to unearth a rare undiscovered Poe manuscript buried beneath Portsmouth Square. After a dramatic confrontation and arrest, Emily's family makes a life-changing decision to remain in San Francisco, giving Emily the stability she has always craved.

The core treasure hunt from Griswold's shooting to the kids' triumph.

James finds Emily's missing Book Scavenger notebook and returns it, having already solved the cipher clue inside.

Barry and Clyde are instructed by their unseen employer to return to the BART station and retrieve the Poe book.

Emily and James go to the Ferry Building to retrieve a hidden book, but a rival player named Babbage has already claimed it.

Emily discovers that rival player Babbage is already at the top-ranked Sherlock Holmes level and will attend her new school.

Emily and James visit Hollister's bookstore on a school holiday, and Emily hides a copy of Inkheart there for another scavenger to find.

Barry finds Emily's Surly Wombat player card at the BART station and tracks the gamer name to the Book Scavenger website.

Maddie challenges James to a public bet over the cipher competition, with a humiliating consequence as the penalty for losing.

Emily and James ride a bus to The Black Cat restaurant to investigate a game clue, but the manager throws them out.

Emily and James find a clue flyer reading 'LOOKING FOR A BLACK CAT? CALL SAMUEL' at the site of a long-closed café.

Emily is demoralized by Book Scavenger forum posts speculating that Griswold will not survive his injuries.

The Crane family attends an outdoor concert in Golden Gate Park, where Emily hides a book inside the park's fountain.

Maddie cheats by copying James's binary cipher and submitting it as her own work, causing a classroom dispute.

Barry and Clyde accost Emily outside Hollister's bookstore, and she hands them an ordinary published copy of The Gold-Bug to satisfy them.

Emily and James set a trap that catches Maddie cheating again, ending the school cipher competition in James's favor.

Emily and James make plans to hide a book inside a bread bag and leave it at Pier 39 for their next adventure.

Running alongside the main treasure hunt is a web of secondary events involving the thugs, Emily's new friendships, and the Book Scavenger community. Barry and Clyde are set on reclaiming the Poe book and track Emily through her online gamer identity, narrowing the danger while the kids follow unrelated leads across the city. Emily's school life introduces a bitter rivalry between James and a scheming classmate named Maddie, whose dishonest tactics in a cipher competition add a separate layer of pressure to the story. The city of San Francisco itself becomes a character through bookshop visits, ferry trips, and park outings that ground the treasure hunt in real community spaces. The pool ends with the adventure fully resolved and Emily looking forward to her next Book Scavenger challenge from a permanent home base.

The supporting cast, side quests, and community that shape the adventure.

Emily notices the Poe book's internal logo closely matches Griswold's Bayside Press symbol and deduces the book belonged to Griswold.

Hollister gifts Emily a Poe story collection; reading it, she identifies the book's logo bird as a raven matching an online player's name.

Quisling intercepts and publicly decodes a cipher note James passed to Emily, then challenges the whole class to invent unbreakable ciphers.

Emily and James arrive at Bayside Press to find Leon Remora already secretly searching inside Griswold's private office.

Emily and James assemble all the hidden typo words into a complete sentence — the opening line of Poe's story The Black Cat.

An anonymous online user claiming to own the Poe book tries to pressure Emily into surrendering it, but she refuses.

Emily lies to Quisling when he asks whether she still has the Poe book, claiming she already hid it for another player.

Emily realizes the torn numbers on the Black Cat flyer are ISBN codes pointing to The Maltese Falcon as the next clue.

Emily confronts Matthew over his self-absorption, prompting him to relent and agree to accompany her on the Maltese Falcon clue hunt.

Emily visits Hollister after losing the Poe book and learns he and Griswold were once business partners who fell out bitterly.

Emily and James reconcile by sending each other coded apologies through the rope-and-bucket pulley system between their apartment windows.

Emily's parents announce they have sold a book about their 50-state journey, alarming Emily and pushing her to urgently solve the puzzle.

Emily waves a band member's cigarette lighter over the Poe book and reveals hidden ink reading 'Portsmouth Square, R.L.S.'

Hollister appears from the darkness at Portsmouth Square and knocks out Clyde, preventing Remora from ordering the children harmed.

Griswold meets the kids at Bayside Publishing, reveals Raven was a programmed digital assistant, and awards them royalties and advisory board seats.

Beneath the surface action, the story is driven by a chain of discoveries and difficult choices that reshape Emily's understanding of friendship and obsession. Emily pieces together literary clues one by one — from the raven logo to the decoded typo message to invisible ink — each breakthrough pushing Griswold's secret game forward. Meanwhile, Emily's fixation on winning leads her to lie to her teacher, shut out her friend James, and ignore danger signs, forcing moments of painful reckoning. The friendship between Emily and James fractures and then heals through honest conversation and a heartfelt coded apology sent through their shared pulley system. By the time the treasure is found and the villain defeated, Emily has learned that stability, friendship, and adventure can all coexist — a lesson her family finally chooses to embrace.