Acting Detective Sergeant Clara Mode lives in a converted van with her freshly permed hair and slight persecution complex. She knows it’s hard to get respect as a woman in 1982, let alone as the only female detective in the region and with the threat of an unfit mother charge hanging over her head.

She is sent to another ‘soft case’ at an archaic boarding school, but when it becomes clear that there is something more sinister at play, she can’t resist her chance to shine, despite the warnings.

Mode loves the smell of risk, but this time she’s risking it all: her job, her daughter and her dignity.