A moonlit autumn night brings out half the county to fill the Tilt-O-Whirl with squealing riders and the dirt around Polly's Pitch Plate with losers' quarters. But in an air nostalgically sweet with caramel apple and spun sugar, one crooked game ends with a brutal death ... and Judge Deborah Knott will discover more than a body. For beneath the carnival's razzle-dazzle surface swirl dark secrets that Deborah has kept hidden for almost twenty years. Now as family loyalties war with the demands of the law, she must struggle to win a carny's trust-before the killer pins a bull's-eye on yet another victim.