Seventh-grader Hercules Beal has to figure out how to fulfill his teacher's assignment of performing the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life, and discovers important things about friendship, community, and himself along the way.

Poppy Caldwell is an orphan who keeps seeing a figure standing behind her in the mirror at the group home where she lives, but she does not associate this ghost with the letter that mysteriously appears in her file, claiming to be from a long-lost aunt, and inviting her to Larkspur House--and she is just one of five children who find themselves gathered in this strange house with a deadly past, and apparently no intention of letting the children escape....

"Grace is the last matriarch of the Cahills, the world's most powerful family. Everyone from Marie Curie to Harry Houdini is related to the Cahills, yet the source of the family's power is lost. 39 Clues hidden around the world will reveal the family's secret, but no one has been able to assemble them. Now the clues race is on, and siblings Amy and Dan must decide what's important: hunting clues or uncovering what really happened to their parents."--...