The Secret of St. Gabriel's Tower is a juvenile mystery (ages 8-12) set in a fictionalized "colored" northern California coastal village in the late 1920s. The protagonists are three eleven-year old African American best friends who are so close that they are nicknamed The Triplets by the townspeople. It is the beginning of summer vacation. Polio is a disease to be feared. The girls are bored. They decide to write their names on the main water tower. Across town their classmate, Ruthie Joan, is equally bored. She still wears a leg brace from polio. She is picked up by a stranger in a nice car and fails to return home. The girls caught by the Sheriff on the water tower decide to go looking for their friend. After all who better to find a missing sixteen year old then three adventurous eleven year olds? Was Ruthie Joan kidnapped? Did she run away? Did she fall over one of the cliffs that skirt the village? What is the Secret of St. Gabriel's Tower?