When environmental scientist, Dr. Ada Logan, throws a coffee cup at her husband’s head, she’s forced to admit that her first months of motherhood aren’t going well. Her husband promises Ada that he will handle the situation. Exhausted, flooded with postpartum hormones, and under pressure from her University, Ada is shocked to learn that his solution is to invite her mother-in-law, Pilar, to come and stay with them in Calgary. The winter day that Pilar arrives in Calgary, the city is covered in a block of ice, and Ada discovers her neighbour, Alex Sánchez, a charismatic, local politician, dead at the foot of his basement stairs. As the police enter the crime scene, Ada sees her business card lying next to Alex’s body. Impulsively, she slips the card in her pocket, hiding the truth from the police, an action that entrenches her in the heart of the mystery. Pilar, a product of Dictator Francisco Franco’s Spain, joins forces with her ambitious, American daughter-in-law to uncover the truth behind Alex Sánchez’s death. Joined by a cast of resilient female characters—Susan Rothburg, the neighbour who knows more than she lets on; Sara Rajavi, the mental health worker with fierce beliefs of her own; Ethel Knight, the older woman who reminisces about the quieter days; and Lorelie Sánchez, Alex’s widow who desperately wanted out of her unhappy marriage—Ada and Pilar start to uncover the complex secrets of their neighbourhood and their city.