A day like any additional for security main Tracy Waterhouse, until she makes a surprising impulse purchase. That one second of madness is all it takes for Tracy’s humdrum world to be converted ugly, the tedium of everyday life replaced by fear and danger at every turn.

Witnesses to Tracy’s outrageous exchange in the Merrion Center in Leeds are Tilly, an seniors actress teetering in the brink of her own disaster, and Jackson Brodie, who has returned to his house county in search of someone else’s root base. All three character types learn that the past is never background and that no great deed goes unpunished.