When book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright temporarily relocates to her parents place in Northern California, she finds that wooden barrels aren t the only things buried in the wine caves of Sonoma .
Excited to explore the secrets of wine country, Brooklyn attends an excavation of the caves hidden deep under her parents commune and the findings are explosive. A room is unearthed, and it contains a treasure trove of artwork, rare books, a chest of jewelry and a perfectly mummified body.
A closer examination of the murdered man s possessions reveals a valuable first edition of Jules Verne s "A Journey to the Center of the Earth." Hidden in the book is a secret map that unveils an even greater hoard of treasures brought to California by French winemakers fleeing the Nazi invasion with the commune leader s grandfather, Anton, among them.
As reporters and art appraisers flock to Sonoma to see the precious bounty, questions begin to rise did Anton hide these items to protect them, or did he steal them for himself? Who is the mysterious man left for dead inside the cave? But not all crime is buried in the past. When a new presence threatens the town s peace, Brooklyn decides to do a little excavating of her own and solve the mystery of the treasure before anyone else is written off. "