Welsh tells a story so subversive and dark it blacks out the Florida sun. When Lucy Brennan, a Miami Beach personal-fitness trainer, disarms an apparently crazed gunman chasing two frightened homeless men along a deserted causeway at night, the police and the breaking-news cameras are not far behind. Within hours, Lucy becomes a hero. Her celebrity is short-lived, though: the 'crazed gunman', Sean McCandless, turns out to be a victim of child sexual abuse and the two men are serial paedophiles. The solitary eye-witness, the depressed and overweight Lena Sorensen, thrilled by Lucy''s heroism and decisiveness, becomes obsessed with the trainer and enrols as a client at her Bodysculpt gym.