A comic tale of gangsters, first love and the crooked path to the straight and narrow: Mercedes Bent is trying to go straight - if only her family weren't so crooked. Mercedes has carved herself a nice little niche at the Daphne Pincher Academy for young ladies, running a sweepstake and taking bets on anything that moves. The only fly in the ointment is her arch-rival, gangster's daughter, Harley Spinks. How come she's got the great work placement and Mercedes has ended up in a boring bank? But things start to look up when Mercedes wangles a date with the bank's hottest young trainee, Zak - until she finds out that it's not just the Spinks gamg who are into dodgy dealings: her own brothers are as crooked as a pair of corkscrews too! It's a safe bet that Mercedes will have to keep her family's illegal acitivities under wraps - if she's to have even an outside chance with the boy of her dreams.