A beloved small town public school teacher fails to arrive for work for the first time in 30 years, leaving an empty house and a baffled community. Vanished, she seems to have disappeared without a trace.

The wife of a successful jeweler is found in their home, stripped naked and beaten to death. The jeweler immediately falls under suspicion, but he's not alone. The couple had been overseeing expensive renovations to their home for the past year - meaning literally hundreds of people had access to the house before the murder.

A string of bank robberies in Winnipeg confound local police. Most bank-robbers are thin strung out addicts. This new man doesn't fit that profile as he is fat. When he strikes next he confuses police further by changing locales and hitting up a bank in Vancouver. One can only fool detectives for so long, however - sooner or later a thief's pattern will give him up.