Elizabeth Scott is dying of cancer, which is never simple. Her daughter Leila, a successful middle-aged bureaucrat, takes a year off work to care for her. At the end of the year Elizabeth says she wants to kill herself and asks Leila to help. Suicide is not illegal in Australia, but helping someone do it is. Leila makes her decision, and seeks help from a voluntary euthanasia group that includes a doctor and some nurses. Detective Nicholas Troy has just come across the group as part of an investigation into excessive deaths in a major Sydney hospital. He starts to wonder if voluntary euthanasia is being used as an excuse for something more sinister. Before long Leila and he are engaged in a conflict where morality and the law might not be the same thing.