In separate locations in Leek, Staffordshire, three separate tableaux are being performed. DI Joanna Piercy is writing to her lover Matthew to try and explain recent events; her sikekick Mike Korpanski is filling in his insurance form after his wife has had a minor accident in the car; and an unknown person is penning love letters to a local doctor.

It seems that no one could lead a more mundane life than Beatrice Pennington, a woman who joins Joanna's cycling club, anxious to regain her figure by dieting and keeping fit. Unexciting; mid-forties; married; a part-time librarian; grown-up kids; her life appears unremarkable. But weeks later a drama unfolds around her. A month after Beatrice begins her quest for health and glamour her distraught husband arrives at the police station to report her missing.

At first Joanna assumes Beatrice has decamped with another man. Evidence certainly seems to point this way. But as Joanna begins to peel back the layers of Beatrice's seemingly uneventful life she begins to realise: Beatrice was no ordinary woman.