For as long as she can remember, nineteen-year-old police cadet, Heather Prendergast, has harboured a burning ambition to become Prendergast of The Yard - the greatest detective the world has known since her hero, the late, great Sherlock Holmes, hung up his deerstalker hat. If she becomes a national treasure in the process, so be it ? it is a cross that she is prepared to bear. However, her career almost hits the buffers when she finds that her ambitions are sadly not matched by her abilities. A chance to rehabilitate her credentials arises when she is asked to find a stolen cat. As is her modus operandi, she embarks upon a bungled undercover investigation with hilarious consequences. Disguised as a tramp, she is arrested for tompeepery, her attempt to assist a citizen in distress backfires disastrously, and her use of an artificially unintelligent drone almost results in a third world war. But all is well that ends well when she finds the missing cat and salvages her career . . . after a fashion.