To follow the job of her dreams, Phoebe takes the dramatic step of leaving her marriage to fly to Canberra, full of hope and excitement. She soon learns that the path she has chosen is not for the faint-hearted. Almost immediately, her ideals are shattered, and she realises that, to survive, she must emulate the treachery of those around her to keep her job and to save face with those back home who had little confidence that she could or should have left in the first place.

In the depths of politics, she finds that she has entered a vipers’ den, full of self-serving careerists, where selfish endeavours thrive, and are indeed encouraged. She becomes a target of the powerful and faces an unimaginable ordeal. Through all of this, she finds an unlikely ally in Josh, a career political operator who is himself conflicted and disillusioned. They form an unlikely alliance, providing the support and emotional connection that helps them deal with the many unnerving and at times unimaginable situations in which they come to find themselves.