Divorced with the love life of a tailor's dummy and battling hourly with single motherhood, at least the kidnap victim, Joan Burling, has been found, traumatized but alive, the villains are either dead or in prison, and Chief Inspector Julie Marsden's career is going from strength to strength. Rosie, her sixteen-year-old daughter, is at long last showing the occasional hint of becoming a half decent human being, and miraculously, Julie has found a prince after a conveyor belt of frogs.

But ... (there's always a but) ... every penny of the £1 million pound ransom money has yet to be found, Rosie is virtually living with a new boyfriend who's ten years her senior, and it seems that her prince has a past that holds a terrible secret. Michael is incapable of such a heinous act and obviously the claim is ridiculous, but ... (sometimes there's more than one) ... the niggle persists and, despite dreading what she'll find, being a detective, Julie feels compelled to detect.