In the rarified world of New York’s Upper East Side, coolly elegant Philippa Lye is the envy of all the mothers at the school gate. Despite a shadowy past, Philippa has somehow married a true ‘master of the universe’, the scion of the last family-held investment bank in the city. And although this puts her at the centre of this world of hedge funds and privilege, she refuses to conform.

Then, into her precariously balanced life, comes two women: Gwen Hogan, an awkward childhood acquaintance who uncovers an devastating secret about Philippa’s past, and Minnie Curtis, a newcomer whose frank revelations about her upbringing in Spanish Harlem and probing into the women’s private lives unsettles everyone.

When Gwen unwittingly leads her husband, a prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office, to stumble over the connection between Philippa’s past and the criminal investigation he is pursuing at all costs, the whole delicate ecosystem of wealth and privilege becomes a tinder box set to explode.