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The year is 1931. The Great Depression is in full swing. Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three and finishing up his last semester at Cornell Veterinary School when the tragedy strikes: both of his parents are killed in an automobile accident and on top of that he loses the family house because his parents had mortgaged it to pay for his tuition. Left without anyone and anything, he fails to take his final exam and simply wanders off. As fate would have it, he winds up on a rickety train that is home to the Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth -- a second rate traveling circus.
Second rate or not, a circus is still a circus and there are always animals in need of professional veterinary care, so Jacob is hired to tend to the outfit's menagerie. His very first task is to examine a lame horse -- and that's how he meets Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star. To say that Jacob is enchanted by Marlena would be a gross understatement, but any thoughts of romantic nature he might be entertaining are squashed right off: she is married, and not to just anyone; her husband August is the animal trainer -- pardon, equestrian director and superintendent of animals -- essentially the circus' number two man.
August is all charm and friendliness on the surface, however, as Jacob finds out soon enough, he is also prone to unpredictable lapses into madness which inevitably end up in outbursts of violence directed against anything that happens to stand in his path. Be that animals, his subordinates, or his own wife. Jacob finds himself at the receiving end of it on more than one occasion himself as he tries to protect the animals from abuse -- especially when it comes to Rosie.
Rosie, a fifty-three-year-old elephant, is the latest addition to the circus' menagerie and everyone is pinning their hopes on her and this new act that is supposed to lift the show to new heights, to bring in the crowds. But even though Rosie is said to be properly trained, August is not able to do anything with her. She doesn't seem to understand even the simplest commands, which unavoidably sends the animal trainer into a fit of rage as he lets her experience the end of his cane, declaring her stupid.
But Jacob is not so sure about that. In fact, observing the elephant when not under duress, he has noticed signs of superb intelligence. He knows Rosie can deliver. He knows there has to be a reason why she isn't performing. And he has to find out what it is before the mad man kills her in one of his bouts of fury.
At the same time he needs to be very careful. His growing affection for Marlena seems not to be a one way affair after all, and, while August may be crazy, he is certainly not blind...
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