David Markham

Sawdust in the Blood used to be a Carny compliment...not a description of a crime scene. There are a thousand sideshows playing thousands of small towns in 1936 when the Knuckles Brothers Show rolls into yet another town, ready to delight and dazzle the town folk with amazing acts and puzzling oddities. As they set up their tents they could not know that within days several of them would be dead, ripped savagely apart by a seemingly inhuman force, their souls stolen from their limp and bloody bodies. Step up, step up, ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin...

Nick Fallin is a hotshot lawyer working at his father's ultrasuccessful Pittsburgh law firm. Unfortunately, the high life has gotten the best of Nick. Arrested for drug use, he's sentenced to do 1,500 hours of community service, somehow to be squeezed into his 24/7 cutthroat world of mergers, acquisitions and board meetings. Reluctantly, he's now The Guardian - a part-time child advocate at Legal Aid Services, where one case after another is an eye-opening instance of kids caught up in difficult circumstances.