When thirteen-year-old Jake Malkin buys an old cuckoo clock at a car-boot sale, he has no idea a small boy is trapped inside. With the boy"s big sister, Ella, Jake sets out to find and rescue Eddie, but he has to contend with evil in the form of Grabbe, a greedy, slave-driving villain and his assistants, the cruel old couple who were the weather man and woman from the cuckoo clock. Lost in the dark in the middle of a mysterious mountain, Jake and Ella meet up with a group of kidnapped boys who have been forced by Grabbe to work as slaves in his gold mine. Can they escape from Grabbe and find their way to safety?