Ruby Palmer has been dealt a rough hand. She was left in a kete at the back door of the Porohiwi Home for Children when she was a baby, and then at seven she discovered that Betty - who stopped the bad stuff happening to Ruby at the Home - has drowned. Now in her thirties, Ruby suspects her friend was murdered - her only lead is a notebook that uses the symbols on playing cards to tell a story she can't understand, but there are other clues too: the man in the balaclava who attacks her when she starts to investigate, and break-ins at the local theatre where Ruby is playing Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. As Ruby goes deeper into the mystery of Betty's death she starts to find answers to questions about herself that she hadn't dared ask before. To discover the truth, she needs to find the wild card, and fast.