Opening night at the annual Harvest Festival carnival and the moonlit autumn evening has brought out half of Colleton County to ride the Tilt-O-Whirl and Ferris wheel, throw quarters at Polly's Plate Pitch, or toss ping-pong balls into bowls of live goldfish against a cacophony of music, clacking machines, and hucksterism. The air is sweetly redolent of hot grease, fried dough, grilled meats, and spun sugar...and one whiff is all it takes to send Judge Deborah Knott straight back to her childhood, holding her mother's hand, riding on the shoulders of one of her eleven brothers, or clinging to her daddy's pants leg, dazzled by the bright neon tubes and colorful chasing lights.

Unfortunately, all is not try-your-luck and stuffed prizes this year. Murder stalks the midway, and when one gaffed game ends with a brutal death, Deborah discovers more than a body.

For hidden beneath the carnival's razzle-dazzle surface is a sordid reality of danger, greed, and dark secrets--devastating confidences that Deborah has kept concealed for almost twenty years. Now as family loyalties war with judicial obligations, Deborah must struggle to win a carny's trust...before the killer pins a bull's-eye on yet another victim.