It's the summer of 1926 when eleven-year-old Shelby Laird first visits his grandparents in the small Virginia town of Claptrapia. An old castle there sparks his imagination, but it is the mansion's exotic inhabitants who surprise him. All is not well with the old place, though, and Shelby quickly finds himself having to save the castle and its peculiar residents from destruction. Against all odds, Shelby faces a mob boss and a maniacal mayor in this charmingly fanciful novel.