Catherine No-Surname lost everything in 1899: her surname, her home, her best friend, and her father--the last of which, murdered. And on the small island of Ablington, hidden deep in the Bermuda Triangle, royal oligarchs refuse to investigate any of Catherine's losses, even the bloodiest kinds. Two years later, come of age, Catherine assembles a plot. It's christened "The Pearl Plot," and it includes five other members. Each Pearl Plot member has their own goal and reason for joining. Some want to live up to their family legacy. Some want to defend those they love. Some join the Pearl Plot for the sake of having an adventure. Others do it to escape fate... The Pearl Plot's goal is to solve Ablington murders, as well as more pressing mysteries. But there's always a catch: the Pearl Plot must be solved within a year and a half. If left unresolved, its members flee to opposite ends of the earth, never to speak of one another or their past lives again. Because if the Pearl Plot members can't find the murderers in a year and a half, they know they'll be murdered themselves. Despite her father's death, the most serious of Catherine's losses has to be a corpse--a corpse buried on her old property, untouched and unidentified. But the day she picked up a shovel and prepared to dig her first clue, she only found yet another mystery: the mystery of the empty grave.