As a newsboy on the streets of 1893 New York, thirteen-year-old Maks Geless has a hard enough time evading the grasp of the Plug Ugly gang, whose sinister boss wants to control all the newsies on the Lower East Side. But now Maks is burdened with a new challenge: proving the innocence of his sister, Emma - in just four days. While Emma's confined to the city jail for allegedly stealing a watch at the glamorous new Waldorf Hotel, Maks teams up with Willa, a strange but loyal girl who lives alone in an alley, and Bartleby Donck, an eccentric lawyer (among other employments), to do some urgently needed detective work.

The vividly described sights and sounds of tenement New York - and Avi's trademark plot twists and turns - thrust the reader alongside Maks as he confronts a world teeming with wealth and crime and struggles against powerful forces that threaten new immigrants and the fabric of family love.