The Court of the Stone Children is set in present-day San Francisco, where Nina Harmsworth has recently moved from her beloved home in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nina feels alone and sad; her parents are preoccupied, her schoolmates unfriendly, and she hates the ugly, closed-in apartment in which her family lives. One day she meets Gil Patrick, a boy her own age who—like Nina—is considered "odd" by other people. He mentions to her a place he likes, the nearby French Museum, lifetime that Nina would some day come to prove Domi's father innocent of the murder for which he was hanged.

As Nina delves into the mystery, the reader joins her to learn about the life and politics of the Napoleonic era. Nina also locates and rents (all on her own) a beautiful apartment where she and her parents can live...