When Professor Giles Dawson, historian of magic and the great illusionists, visits the Circus Tropicana, wintering at a former RAF airfield in Devon, he is not there to be entertained. He is there at the request of the circus boss, Ramon Mordomo. Ramon Mordomo has experienced a series of disasters at the circus, which appear to be the work of someone trying to force him to give up the circus he loves – making him run the Gauntlet of Fear. Once Giles has been introduced to the list of suspects, he witnesses a number of so-called accidents – which any one of the suspects could have caused. He then receives some cryptic messages.... which only add more mystery to the puzzle. Things turn deadly when an accident in the ring turns out to be murder... watched by hundreds of spectators. The attempt to solve the riddle leads Giles to York, where the circus opens the season and where a second murder is committed in a locked room. A murder which is so bizarre that...

When Jack Ramsden, a cabinet-maker and designer of stage props for magicians, was preparing his annual illusion for his wife's birthday, he was killed by a shot from a rifle on a stand. The problem was – he was alone in the room when the shot was fired and the door and windows were locked. A verdict of death by misadventure was declared at the inquest. Fourteen years later the official findings are being questioned by at least one member of his family. Professor Giles Dawson, a London historian specialising in magic and the great illusionists, receives a cryptic letter from Laura, Jack Ramsden's daughter whom he knew as a child. The letter urges him to return for her mother's 70th birthday celebrations to help prove that her father's death had been murder. Giles accepts the invitation and, during a weekend fraught with danger, he comes face to face with everyone who was present on the night Jack Ramsden died. Certain entries in the dead man's diary require explanation and...

Giles, Professor of Magic and Illusion, is invited to join the cast during their rehearsals at the oldest working theatre in Scotland. 'The Cinderella Murders', destined to become a West End hit needs a 'wow factor' and Giles is the man to create illusions which will mesmerize and delight audiences. But the rehearsals themselves are dogged by Illusions, misdirections, tricks and random inexplicable happenings.