She immediately discovers a trapdoor to a basement she did not know existed, is given a strange key and an old, odd map, and learns Oscar, whose passion was the San Francisco Gold Rush, was searching for a secret tunnel constructed by the mysterious business man William Leidesdorff over a hundred years ago. 

As she encounters each of Oscar’s friends, she notices each either has something Oscar asked them to give her if anything happened to him, or has a tulip emblem on something they own. Not sure where all this will lead, and not sure what to do with the store, the protagonist traces the last days of Uncle Oscar’s life and realizes that doing so may mean the last days of hers.  

Most times, the protagonist is a vague as her lack of name might suggest.  She came from the East Coast to take an accountant job, speaks of extended family in general, estranged terms, but makes no mention of immediate family. Upon her inheritance she decides quickly to keep the shop, even though she shows little interest in the business and doesn’t really have ideas for what to do with the real estate. She begins living in her uncle’s apartment as her old life quickly fades into the past, and when she is fired at her accounting firm due to a rumor she is going to strike out on her own, she accepts the dismissal without question.  

The characters who come into her life could be characterized as eccentric, but they too, for the most part, are rather vapid. There is no real motive for her to follow the mystery her uncle became intrigued with, nor is there anything in the beginning to suggest that her uncle’s death was anything but a stroke. 

The San Francisco history is an interesting back story in which to frame the mystery. A scene in the library where an unsympathetic clerk upon hearing of Oscar’s death, though not asking for proof, announces that his card was used just that morning and tells the title of the book checked out, will be disturbing to librarians and anyone who holds library record confidentiality sacred. Isabella and Rupert will add some charm to the plot for cat fanciers, while non-cat lovers will be less than impressed with their precociousness and preciousness.  

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry