Paradise Sold

On the South Island of New Zealand, 12-year-old Tui Mitcham is rescued from the freezing waters of a remote mountaintop lake, which she had walked into in an apparent attempt to take her own life. Her teacher notices that she is pregnant and with the small local police force ill-equipped to question her, social services enlist the help of child protection expert Detective Robin Griffin to talk to the girl and uncover the truth. Robin has only just returned to Queenstown from Sydney, Australia, to visit her dying mother but agrees to help. Slowly, she forges a connection with Tui and learns more about her and her family, but the young girl refuses to reveal the father of her unborn child.

Meanwhile, Tui's father Matt is bemused to find a small ad hoc village is created out of container crates on a plot of land known locally as Paradise, land which he believes he owns but has seemingly been sold by local estate agent Bob Platt. Populated by women of a certain age, veterans of love and rejection, the project is financed by rich divorcee Bunny but they are led by GJ, a silver-haired Svengali who administers a bracing form of kindness. Furious and seeking revenge, Matt sends his sons to question Platt, who has betrayed him with the sale.

As Robin continues to investigate Tui's case and learns more about the small town of Laketop, her world starts to unravel, uncovering difficult secrets from her past.