A sharp detective with a messy life, DCI Vera Stanhope patrols her “patch” of northeast England, pursuing the truth in cases of murder, kidnapping, and blackmail. Vera is obsessive about her work and faces the world with caustic wit, guile and courage.

Dawn is a mobile hairdresser in a small, working class town in the North East of England. As she talks and tends to her customers, Dawn is plunged into a chatty world of lifestyle-shaming and gentrified expectations, sudden responsibilities and fast-paced change. Through their conversations, Dawn finds each of her customers at their own cross-roads, their own dreams and expectations rooted, for the moment, in the promise of a brand new hairdo.

Amongst the desperation and fear growing in a crime ridden estate in northern England, one man becomes embroiled into saving what community life exists.