Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, plan a trip to Atlantic City. But odds are it won’t be all fun and games --- seeing as it’s actually a cover story to negotiate a deal with a dangerous loan shark; save Vero’s childhood crush, Javi, from a kidnapper, Marco; and hunt down a stolen car. When they sneak into the loan shark’s suite to search for clues, they find more than they bargained for: Marco is already dead. They don’t know who murdered him, only that they themselves have a very convincing motive. Will Finlay fold under the pressure and come clean about the things she’s done, or be forced to double down?

Finlay Donovan has been in messes before --- after all, she's an author and single mom who’s a pro at getting out bloodstains for rather unexpected reasons --- but none quite like this. She and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, accidentally destroyed a luxury car that they “borrowed” in the process of saving Finlay’s ex-husband. The Russian mob handled her debt, but that means Finlay now owes them. Still running the show from behind bars, mob boss Feliks has a task for Finlay: find a contract killer before the cops do. Problem is, the killer might be an officer. Luckily, hot cop Nick has started up a citizen’s police academy, so Finlay has the perfect cover-up to sleuth out the real criminal as she does some “research” for her new novel. Nick is more than happy to get close to Finlay, but he’s also getting dangerously close to the truth.

Finlay Donovan is once again struggling to finish her next novel and keep her head above water as a single mother of two. On the bright side, she has her live-in nanny and confidant Vero to rely on, and the only dead body she's dealt with lately is that of her daughter's pet goldfish. On the not-so-bright side, someone out there wants her ex-husband, Steven, out of the picture. Permanently. Whatever else Steven may be, he's a good father, but saving him will send her down a rabbit hole of hit-women disguised as soccer moms, and a little bit more involvement with the Russian mob than she'd like. Meanwhile, Vero is keeping secrets, and Detective Nick Anthony seems determined to get back into her life.

Finlay Donovan is a stressed-out single mom of two and struggling novelist. The new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors. When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she is mistaken for a contract killer and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet. Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.