An assassin wearing a leprechaun mask guns down the grand marshal of New York's St. Patrick's Day parade, and it's Danny O'Flaherty's Irish luck to be the only witness. The victim -- brash, inflammatory journalist Fintan Conway -- had many enemies, but when police accuse Danny's friend and IRA activist Brendan Grady, Danny is determined, despite Grady's refusal of help, to prove his innocence.

While juggling teaching at an inner city high school, romance with feisty Irish beauty Fidelma Muldoon and threats that go beyond politics into the world of hard drugs and danger, Danny uncovers some shocking truths about Conway, Grady and the thin line between ethnic loyalties and greed. It is a line that reaches back to his own past, to a woman he once loved and the caprices of fate that can both bless and shatter our lives.