The story is laid in Ringshall, a small English village, rich in tradition, superstition, and folklore. Squire Godfrey Harrington, land-rich and coffers-poor, has married a wealthy widow who intends to compel the village's advancement towards progress and culture whether they like it or not. A town fair, set up on Foakes Green despite the villagers' misgivings, culminates in bad blood-when a murder is discovered, death by 'elf-bolt', there are plenty of motives. As Miss Marion Leslie, narrator-turned-sleuth, and her curate friend Roger Cartwright discover, the dead woman made many enemies and preserved her own secrets.

Mystery fiction researchers determined that P. R. Shore was a pseudonym for Helen Madeline Leys (1892-1965), who also wrote as Eleanor Scott. The Bolt was published in 1929, while her second mystery (also as by P. R. Shore) was The Death Film, published in 1932.