Circus of Death (ePub)

Benny Toest, flamboyant owner of The Circus of Stars, under tent at winter quarters in Sarasota Florida, is viciously murdered. The weapon? A deadly poisonous Saw Scaled Viper that had been placed in his rural mailbox moments before he reached in his hand to collect the mail. His daughter, Cinnamon, hires Eddie Ryan and Clocker Corrigan to find the killer and investigate other mysterious accidents happening to their animals and performers. As Eddie and Clocker watch the dress rehearsal of the spec - the spectacular circus parade - in the Big Top, Luis Ricardo, the previous show owner is shot and killed while he talks to them. The circus setting itself is a high drama place. Action packed and highly colorful. It's an inside story. Where they talk the talk and walk the walk of circus life. Wonderful characters like Countess Cleopatra The Snake Lady; The Alligator Girl; the Human Cannonball; Teeter Totter; Charlie Twenty Twenty; breathtaking High Wire and Trapeze acts; the clowns and elephants all play a part in this intricate plot. Columbian drug cartels have been trying to buy the circus as a means to launder money. Others too, have a motive for murder as a result of a tragic fire years before that killed and maimed performers and their family members. The list of potential suspects grows. Ryan and Corrigan trace the venomous snake to the Seminole Indian Reservation which puts them on the trail of the killer. But then a Joey, a horse-act clown, who could have led them to solve the mystery is brutally executed in his trailer. Ryan joins the circus, undercover, but is badly beaten in his Winnebago motorhome on the back lot. He recovers and goes to upstate New York to investigate the old fire and interview victims still incarcerated in the burn unit of a mental home. The trail narrows. He finds the final clues in the archives of the Sarasota Circus Museum. Circus of Death is ablaze with the colour of the circus. It's action packed. And you'll love the Ruyonesque characters that you'd only find under the Big Top. The plot is unique with excitement, murder and mystery on every page. This is yet another of the continuing Bloodhound mystery series written by Bob Heal.