Woman detective V.I. Warshawski's investigation into the death of a battered woman found lying on the street takes her from the world of the rich and famous to that of a women's prison.

"In the sweltering summer of 1915, Pin, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a carnival fortune-teller, dresses as a boy and joins a teenage gang that roams the famous Riverview amusement park, looking for trouble. Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy the midway, the park is also host to a ruthless killer who uses the shadows of the dark carnival attractions to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell...

Becoming suspicious about facts surrounding a tragic vehicular homicide for which a young man blames himself, psychic Nuala Anne McGrail and her husband find the case complicated by a scandal involving the diary of a nineteenth-century priest.

With only a few weeks left before his wedding, Dermot is hoping his fiancee Nuala won't have anymore psychic dreams, but before he knows what is happening, he is following one of Nuala's hunches and trying to solve a historic mystery.