Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective - or she was, before medical leave left her unsure if she'd ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing: the weekenders in their fancy clothes, renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes.

Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her cleaner, often knows. She's an invisible presence in many of the houses in town but she sees and hears everything.

The conflicts in town boil over when a newcomer wants to put Ebbing on the map with a giant music festival, and a teenage girl ends up dead because of drugs. When a man also disappears the first night of the festival, Elise is drawn back into her detective work and starts digging for answers. Ebbing is a small town, but it's full of myriad secrets and hidden connections that run deeper and darker than Elise could have ever imagined.