A lyrical evocation of Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers.

Mirette learns tightrope walking from Monsieur Bellini, a guest in her mother's boarding house, not knowing that he is a celebrated tightrope artist who has withdrawn from performing because of fear.

"When the Great Blondin announced that he was going to walk from America to Canada across the Niagara River on a rope that was more than 1,100 feet long and just 3 inches wide, hanging 160 feet above the raging river, people came from everywhere. Some came to watch him cross. Some came to watch him fall. Some thought he wouldn't show up at all. But he did show up. And he did walk across the river. And then he did something else amazing. He crossed...

Although Henry the cat learns tightrope walking only to impress the humans in his family, who have stopped paying attention to him because of their new puppy, his skill comes in handy when the puppy gets stranded on a high ledge.

After the Great Bellini teaches young Mirette to walk the high wire, she uses her talent to free him from prison, and both resolve to help others become free.

"Bernadette McCoy's death is blamed on seven cats, but Police Chief Mad Dog Connolly believes an individual killed her. Sean Kelley attends the Cirque de Délices and watches Angelique Aumont perform. He wants the beautiful Parisian rope walker for his traveling circus, and his wife, but she departs for America to live with her Auntie Bernadette. Hired by P. T. Barnum, Sean promotes singer Jenny Lind Barnum's Swedish Nightingale and assembles his...

"In 1859, Jean-Francois Gravelet, known as The Great Blondin, walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. What kind of man would do something like that? And more importantly, how do you become that man?"--