In 1918, caring for her family's homing pigeons while her father is away fighting in World War I, twelve-year-old Pam comes to suspect that a mysterious stranger in her small North Carolina town is a German spy.

In 1865, while helping her family keep their Virginia farm going through the end of the Civil War, twelve-year-old Cassie meets a Confederate deserter and a Yankee prisoner of war and tries to discover who has been stealing from the farm.

In the late nineteenth century, twelve-year-old Rhoda investigates her suspicion that a wrecker may be luring ships to their destruction on the Virginia barrier island where her father is Keeper of a U.S. Lifesaving Station. Includes historical notes on the United States Life-Saving Service. It's 1985. Rhoda Midyette has lived all her life on Glenn Island, where her father is keeper of the U.S. Lifesaving Station. But she's never before seen the odd...