While searching for a legendary treasure believed to have been buried at a rural Virginia location, Jack Atkins is given a fresh lead at an estate sale. Among the rare volumes in the library of the family's patriarch, Grumble, is a dusty copy of Sir Francis Bacon's unfinished utopian work entitled 'New Atlantis'. Jeremy Pye, a fellow seeker of fortune that Jack befriends, is convinced that a finished copy was spirited away in the past and still remains concealed in a hidden vault, and that what this 'perfected' version reveals is infinitely more valuable than a hoard of gold.

While exploring the connections between a Maonic allegory embedded in cipher texts and those ingeniously encoded in the works of Shakespeare - in particular the bard's swan song, 'The Tempest' - they unmask a cabal of illustrious figures known as "The Good Pens". Meanwhile, Jack is smitten with Grumble's great granddaughter, Callie, who is in possession of a family 'heirloom' - an artifact of unfathomable antiquity that, at times, appears to be sentient. This might explain why shadowy government types watch their every move, along with a mysterious presence that attempts to guide them on their quest with visions whose meaning they struggle to grasp.

Soon, the three are drawn to a private island near Bermuda, whose enigmatic owner is inclined to pleonexia - "an insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others". Living in a paradise that contains parallels with the enchanted isle of 'The Tempest', they are witness to undreamed of things that enduring myths of fantastic events in distant times give only a faint penciling thereof.