In The Chronicles of Strange Ways: The Secret of the Spores, fourteen-year-old Jake Chambers becomes the talk of the town when he inherits his granduncle's massive fortune in Strange Ways, Nevada. The condition of the inheritance is that Jake must carry on his granduncle's secret work - solving and documenting the strange "goings-on" in the city. Jake's first mystery is to solve his granduncle's death, which has something to do with the odd hallucinogenic spores being sold to teenagers and teachers alike at his high school. Also at stake is the life of Jake's mother. When Jake learns it may be possible to cure her of the terrible disease that is killing her, he has no choice but to take on his granduncle's work. Tied to the mystery is the fact that Jake and his dead Granduncle Wilton Winthrop both share an incredibly rare genetic condition - a single white eye. Armed with his granduncle's immense resources, including a secret underground lair run by a protective artificial intelligent computer named Aristotle, Jake quickly learns that Strange Ways is rife with the bizarre, the mysterious, and the unexplained, and that Uncle Wilt has been documenting it for years. A series of questionable decisions leaves Jake on the run from classroom bullies, vindictive teachers and a mysterious government agency that will stop at nothing to gain the power of the spores. Jake's investigation takes an unbelievable turn when the sponge-like material appears to be extraterrestrial. Dodging traps and complications along the way, Jake and his friends, Porsche and Cloud, must race against the clock to stop the spores from destroying his new home town.