It’s the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York, shimmer in a heatwave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery.

It’s every mother’s worst nightmare. But Ruth Malone is not like other mothers …

Noting Ruth’s perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to the obvious conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation.

Covering the story as his first big assignment, reporter Pete Wonicke at first can’t help but do the same. But the longer he spends watching Ruth, the more he learns about the darker workings of the police and the press, and the underbelly of the city he now calls home. Soon, Pete begins to doubt everything he thought he knew.

Ruth Malone is mesmerising, challenging and unknowable: is she really capable of murder?

Based on real events, Little Deaths is an intoxicating story about love, morality and obsession, exploring the capacity for good and evil within us all.