The fourth in the FFSG series.

Christmas and winter have come and gone and there is a spring in the step of the good denizens of the pretty little town of Wellbury. Apart from that of Detective Sergeant Frank Summers. While the doctors and surgeons have done all they can to repair the physical damage of a gunshot wound to the head, they have failed to fix the psychological damage of causes they know nothing about. Frank has become all the things he had always determined he would not: obsessive, distrustful, haggard, seeking sleep through a whisky-bottle.

The spring has brought other traditions back, welcome to most Wellburians, if not the Detective Sergeant. The university is celebrating Rag Week, with new and existing students encouraged to perpetrate the most ingenious or stupid pranks on the populace. Bentley's travelling funfair is in town, with a riot of colour of foreign clowns, trapeze artists, and all the other amazing and marvellous acts it had to offer.

Which, some people believe, is also behind the case that Frank has chosen to solve, that of the Joker Gang, a group of criminals who always leave behind two calling cards, a joker and one other. Some Wellburians claim that that points to the Romanians and Gypsies behind Bentley's circus. Frank doesn't care what nationality they might be, he's just determined that he's going to nick them.

And then there's the case of "The Curious Incident of Cleopatra's Clothes". The owners of the local cabaret are planning a pageant based on famous women down the ages. Cleopatra's costume has been abducted and a piece of doggerel attached to the replacement:

"If Sergeant Frankie Summers cannot unravel,
untangle, unroll and reveal
that which Julie's gaze did baffle
then Cleopatra's gown
will have the feel
of a clown"

If there is anything calculated to cause Frank to lose his senses it is being called Frankie. So begins a personal mission to publicly identify the perpetrators and prove that they are not in the same league as Frank Summers.

And sort out the Joker Gang. And there's another lot who appear to be challenging him to a battle of wits. And there's the person called the Shocker who appears to want to brighten up his life with Wellbury's entire electrical output.

Possibly worst of all is that someone has left a little kitten outside his flat by mistake, leaving him to look after the poor little mite. What other option does a Detective Sergeant on a mission have in such a situation, other than to name the kitten Squishy and take her on the quest with him?