Reporter Laura Ackroyd's rash acceptance of a dangerous assignment from her editor at the Bradfield Gazette gets her in hot water in more ways than one. Out to cover the prostitutes in this Yorkshire town's red light district, she dresses up to be inconspicuous and ends up arrested for soliciting. To be discovered in the cells and rescued by DCI Michael Thackeray, with whom she has a tumultuous relationship, is downright humiliating. As if that weren't bad enough, the discovery of a young woman's body only a few hundred yards away and only a few hours later turns Laura's assignment of a simple story about prostitution into a much more dangerous proposition.