The Winter Ground

Times are hard for a struggling family circus in the long, cold winter of 1925. Pa and Ma Cooke are more than happy to accept the offer of free winter standing on the remote Blackcraig estate in Perthshire in return for a few shows to the Wilson family around Christmastime. Wealthy but brash Albert Wilson is excited to find himself the center of a circle of bright young women who are agog for the circus and ready to endure his company to view a free show. With the threat of revolution blowing in from the east on the icy gales, Hugh Gilver is less pleased to see the troupe Prebrezhensky ensconced in the valley, but the Gilver boys cannot get enough of Tiny Truman the midget and Andrew Merryman the giant, not to mention the mysterious and beautiful barebacked rider Anastasia. When Ma Cooke asks for Dandy’s help to get to the bottom of a string of spiteful tricks at the winter ground, Hugh gives his approval. But the fun runs out when the silly tricks take a darker turn, leaving one of the performers dead and the Cooke, Wilson, and Gilver families fractured amid whispers of murder.