Nina Fforde believed her parents had the perfect marriage—until her elegant mother showed up at her father's funeral in gleeful red lipstick. In the days following, Petra's behaviour only becomes more inappropriate. She clears the family home of any vestige of her husband, Malcolm. She smokes, she drinks, she laughs lustily during stolen phone calls. It's her life, the sixty-nine-year-old matron warns her daughters, and she's finally going to live it.

Nina's twin sister Libby puts Petra's transformation down to a form of ?bereavement mania,' induced by the freak accident that took Malcolm's life. She's just temporarily unhinged; she'll be back to her lovely old self in no time. Nina's older sister, Clary, is more suspicious. Even before Malcolm's death, she'd seen evidence their parents' marriage wasn't as blissful as publicized.

Nina is caught in the middle. She's going through a transformation herself. Her father's sudden death makes her re-evaluate her own life. She hasn't lived up to her early promise. Now in her mid-thirties, Nina and her schleppy boyfriend are working as live-in help for a retired professor. In a moment of clarity, Nina moves in with Petra. Her front-row seat gives her an uncomfortably intimate view of her mother's life. The nude sunbathing and show tunes in the shower are upsetting, but it's Petra's covert involvement with a much younger man that raises the question: Was Petra complicit in Malcolm's death?

The police file is still open and a young, keen-eyed detective is keeping a close watch on the Fforde family. Wanting both to protect her mother and do right by her father, Nina begins her own investigation—hoping to get to the truth first. What she finds will change everything she thought she knew about her parents, and shake the very foundations of their family.