Kate Klein has always been adequate – good but not good enough. She was a decent singer but not as good as her Opera-singer mother. She looked alright but nowhere near as glamorous as her best friend. She was the good friend for her crush to go to when he needed company while his model-girlfriend was away – but not good enough to actual be the one he came home to. Eventually after an eye-opening night Kate up and moves on with her life, and fate intervenes right away and she meets her now-husband – and settles down with him.
Life changes – her husband moves her away from the city and to a boring suburbia. She has three kids – all under the age of four. Her husband promises to help out but is never home. Kate is now a full-blown housewife and mother..and she is bored. She doesn’t fit in to this new life – the other mothers are perfect and don’t make her feel included.
Kate tries her hardest to be one of the girls but can’t seem to meet their standards. However, one mother – Kitty – is kind to her. Kate thinks it’s a front – more sneer than smile. That’s why she is surprised one day to receive a call from Kitty inviting her over for lunch, saying she has something to tell her. Curiously, Kate and her kids go to Kitty’s house, only to find Kitty dead in the middle of her kitchen floor!
The murder rocks the quiet town. So much for safety in the suburbs! Against her husband’s wishes, Kate begins to play detective – whether it’s from her former reporter days or just out of boredom – she feels that she can figure this out. This is something she can be good at!
The more Kate digs, the more puzzles she uncovers. How will she ever fit the pieces together? Her past catches up with her at the same time, and her marriage reaches unstable ground. Kitty, it seems, was a complex character. She was unlike the other mothers, and Kate begins to realize just how off her judgments had been. Kitty had been trying to solve a mystery of her own, which is thrown into the mix as Kate struggles to find answers. Eventually her own safety is put on the line but she’s in too far deep to get out.
When the answers start to surface, Kate begins to understand that the front wall of the suburbia community was a mask for the crazy lives and people within. Maybe she doesn’t want to fit in after all!
