The circus is coming to town and Nancy Drew and The Clue Crew couldn’t be more excited. Flyers have been all around town and it’s supposed to be the best show anyone has ever seen. The girls love the circus and to welcome them into town, there is a huge parade to celebrate. In The Circus Scare by Carolyn Keene, Nancy, George and Bess watch as daring acrobats, elephants, a car full of clowns and a bear named Brownie make their way down the street. Brownie is already putting on a show for the crowd when he walks away from his trainer to take a woman’s purse from the crowd but quickly gives it back. Everyone thinks Brownie is hilarious.

While everyone is enjoying the parade, Nancy’s got her eye on something else. All the performers in the circus are wearing their performing costumes and jewelry; well most of them are anyway. There are circus performers missing essential parts of their costumes like head dresses for the elephant riders and capes for the acrobats. When she points it out to her friends, they quickly write it off. After all, they did just get into town and maybe they couldn’t find everything in time for the parade. Nancy’s not so sure.

Opening night of the circus the girls take their seats. Nancy instantly knows that there is a case to be solved. All the performers that were missing parts of their costumes are still missing and now there are even more performers that have missing pieces. Not only that, but it is very apparent that these circus performers are not happy about it either. What on earth is going on around here? The clue crew is now on the case and Nancy is going to get to the bottom of things.

With her notebook in hand, she begins searching for clues and jotting them down. Their classmate, Deirdre has been spouting how she is going to have an even better circus in her back yard and everyone gets in for free. She claims that there is going to be a huge surprise but won’t tell a soul. They have to come to her show to find out what it is. Could Deirdre be the one that has been stealing from the circus to make her show the best? And now there is a strange boy helping her that no one has ever seen or met before. Something strange and sneaking is definitely going on around River Heights.