The small Texas town of Riverby is on the road to recovery from scandals and corruption that led to the murder of their beloved sheriff when the wife of an eccentric professor commits suicide. During a somber graveside service, her deviant son pushes the elderly funeral director into his mother's open grave. When the town's stately funeral home is destroyed by fire and a small girl's party dress is discovered in an abandoned shack, Riverby's survival seems threatened. Then a stranger steps off a train and hobbles across a field to free a man from a trap just in time to save his hand and possibly his life. The Circle of Hurt takes in this obscure and enigmatic stranger with the intention of helping him, but it is The Circle and the town that receives help. The chain of dark events is not broken, but light begins to triumph over darkness.