Thumb and his best friend, Susan, love movie nights, when the entire community of New Auckland gathers in the school gym to eat popcorn and watch videos. Mostly they are movies about bad guys being tracked down by cool detectives. It's the villains, Thumb realizes, that make life interesting. If only he could track down a bad guy.

But New Auckland is a remote fishing village. There are only 143 people in the entire community. How could there possibly be bad guys around? Thumb is determined, and so he and Susan conduct a stakeout. Their suspicions soon focus on Kirk McKenna, a toothless, bald fisherman. They track Kirk to a hidden shed in the woods, where they hear the muffled but chilling sounds of wailing. Meanwhile, their teacher sends the kids off to solve a different kind of mystery -- an archeological one that leads them to the possible site of an early European gun placement. Suddenly mysteries abound for Thumb and his friends.