When her parents die from fever, Lady Sarah Montgomery Baird Watson-Wentworth has to leave India, a land she was born and raised in, and travel to England for the first time. Finding it almost impossible to adjust to London society, Sarah flees to the county of Cheshire and the country estate of Grangeback that borders the village of Stickleback Hollow. A place filled with oddballs, eccentrics and more suspicious characters than you can shake a stick at, Sarah feels more at home in the sleepy little village than she ever did in the big city, however, even sleepy little villages have mysteries that must be solved.

Excitement reigns in Stickleback Hollow as the circus comes to entertain the madding crowds, but a rash of burglaries bring the circus performers into the path of Constable Arwyn Evans. Are the transient performers to blame for the thefts or is there someone else with more sinister motives waiting in the wings?