A swashbuckling pirate ship cuts through the early morning fog. Crouching like a tiger about to spring, her figurehead is a huge and ferocious rat with crooked teeth and gouged-out eyes.

When the daring Giant Rat of Sumatra drops anchor in San Diego, twelve-year-old cabin boy Shipwreck only wants to begin his long journey home to Boston. Instead he encounters:

snarling mutineers
barefoot bandits
hairbreadth escapes
duels
cunning barkeeps
simmering revenge
secret identities
scrappy orphans
betrayals
lost loves
old enemies
new villains
heroic last stands

and razzle-dazzle treasure so well hidden that only someone as quick and clever as Shipwreck could keep up with it.

Plucked from the sea by the most notorious pirate in the Pacific, Shipwreck discovers his adventure is only beginning.