Just months away from retirement, Chief Superintendent Frances Harman verges on overload as she takes on evermore responsibilities. Her list of priorities doesn't seem to have a top, middle or bottom anymore; everything seems to be top priority. First there is the puzzling case of 'Elise' – the unidentified woman found unconscious at a roadside, who's condition of persistent vegetative state means that if the hospital turns off her life support her attacker will be guilty of murder – then there's Fran's irritable parents who must be cared for, a child abduction case that must be quickly resolved, the disappearance of her only witness and the growing affection that she and long-term colleague, Mark Turner, seem to share for one another...

In a satisfyingly complex story of deadly crime, kidnapping, disappearance, and identify theft, can this warhorse of a detective beat the odds, the stress and the danger that may just be too much for one woman to handle?