Coming September 15, 2026
The Circus of the Vanishing Elephant
An adventurous tale of a vanished elephant, a fractured family, and the journey that might bring them home.
By Tim Schooley
When the King Minos Circus’s beloved elephant vanishes during a parade, suspicion falls on the owner’s estranged daughter and a young clown haunted by the ghost of his father.
1974 – The King Minos Circus is barely holding on as the country falters and audiences drift away. Its fortunes rise again when Christos “King” Minos unlocks a dazzling vanishing elephant illusion featuring Henrietta, the animal he loves more fiercely than he can admit.
But when animal-rights activists launch a plot of their own, the illusion becomes real. Henrietta disappears—along with Minos’s daughter, Randi, and Ainge, the circus’s newest clown. Left behind, Minos believes he has been betrayed by the two people he trusted most and vows to bring them to justice.
Held captive in a barn north of Seattle, Randi and Ainge form an uneasy alliance as they care for Henrietta and plan their escape. Their journey—stretching across the American West, through small towns and roadside shows—forces them to confront who they are, whom they belong to, and what freedom truly means.
In the end, the choice of whether Henrietta returns to the circus is not theirs—but hers.
Advance Praise
Coming Soon
Tim Schooley’s first job out of high school was as a circus clown with Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus. He later attended UC Santa Barbara and then UC Berkeley Law School. He worked as an appellate lawyer, taught at UC Davis Law School, and served as the managing attorney of the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, in Sacramento.
All along, Tim wrote fiction, but he waited until his retirement to publish his debut novel, The Wool Translator. His forthcoming novel is The Circus of the Vanishing Elephant.
Tim is active in the Sacramento literary community, serving as Co-Chair of the Sacramento Book Festival and on the board of directors of the Sacramento branch of the California Writers Club.