Synopsis
In Irish Echo editor O'Hanlon's first novel, a shaky assassination thriller, tabloid reporter Nick Bailey gets a tip about the police discovery of a dead priest found hanging off London's Blackfriars Bridge, where Roberto Calvi, a banker implicated in a Vatican financial scandal, died similarly in 1982. Buy the Book!
Bailey learns that another priest belonging to the same order also apparently took his own life several months earlier. As the journalist pursues his inquiries, the author throws in a number of other story lines, including the schemes of a group of London businessmen in 1607 to realign England politically with Catholic Spain, the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, and a plan to kill the American president on the White House grounds. Readers will wonder how it all turns out, but they may feel cheated by the end.
Author
Ray O’Hanlon is editor of The Irish Echo, the USA's most widely read Irish‐American newspaper, based in New York City. Over the course of a distinguished newspaper career spanning more than thirty years, he has reported from three continents and has appeared on “CBS’ 60 Minutes,” “BBC News,” “ABC World News Tonight” and “PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” In addition to his work as a reporter and editor, O’Hanlon is a frequent contributor to media reporting on Ireland, Irish American affairs and Anglo‐Irish relations. His book, The New Irish Americans (Roberts Rinehart, 1998), was the recipient of a Washington Irving Book Award.
A native of Dublin and a keen reader of American, Irish and British history, O’Hanlon lives with his wife Lisa and their three children in Ossining, New York.