Betrayed and blackmailed by friend and foe, the Riordans are forced to make desperate choices that bear heavy consequences. While Pamela appears to flourish in the arena of Boston Irish society, Casey struggles to survive in a sphere where his presence has become increasingly inconvenient. Here, a man's life can hang upon the whim of another, and neighborhood politics and organized crime are one and the same. Casey and Pamela Riordan have fled the erupting violence of Belfast, Northern Ireland, only to find themselves tangled in the web of political corruption that permeates South Boston. The long-awaited sequel to Exit Unicorns opens in the autumn of 1969.

Pamela, who has come to Ireland in search of a memory and a man who may not have existed in the first place. Casey, a card-carrying member of the Irish Republican Army, who must face the fact that five years away has left him a stranger, a misfit in his own neighborhood where not everyone is sympathetic to a convicted rebel. They come from disparate backgrounds - Jamie a wealthy aristocrat whose life is like an imperfect but multi-faceted jewel-brilliant, flawed and with a glitter that is designed to distract the observer. All three lives are on a collision course with each other against the backdrop of the burgeoning civil rights movement and a nation on the brink of revolution. It is the spring of 1968 in Belfast and James Kirkpatrick has just lost his father under suspicious circumstances, Casey Riordan is released from prison after five years and Pamela O'Flaherty has crossed an ocean and a lifetime of memories to find the man she fell in love with as a little girl. In this sweeping and powerful epic the journey begins in the 'terrible beauty' of Northern Ireland during a time when conflict reigns and no one is spared from tragedy and sorrow, the time known as The Troubles.

Cindy brandner books