Paul Mackrell would like to be writing sensitive prose fiction, but when he’s offered an incredible fee to ghost the memoirs of TV’s most famous soap star, he can’t refuse. Star of the long-running soap New Town, Eileen Weathers has played Maggie Parrott, manageress of the Clean Queen launderette, for 30 years. Channel Six, the media giants behind the show, need Eileen’s autobiography to be a bestseller to help rescue the soap’s rapidly falling ratings.

No stranger to tabloid gossip, Eileen is keen to put paid to the rumours about her murky past. She wants to reveal the true, unadulterated story, or so she tells Paul. But some of her stories don’t quite add up. When Eileen’s husband and his young mistress are found dead in the family home, suspicion falls on her and she is arrested. The papers have a field day, and New Town’s ratings soar – but will the soap survive with its leading lady behind bars? Did Eileen commit murder? It’ll all come out in the wash…