This time, Tony Harrington's journey into darkness is personal.

Out of work for the first time in his life, and mourning the loss of a favorite aunt, former journalist Tony Harrington needs to get away. He travels to Ireland, intending to visit the sites of his ancestral roots. His plans are disrupted on the first day, when he's attacked on a Dublin street in broad daylight; then disrupted again when his sister's boyfriend convinces him to visit the remote village of Allihies on the Beara Peninsula.

At sunrise a few days later, his plans are dashed completely when a uniformed officer knocks on his hotel room door and asks him to accompany her to the scene of a double homicide. Soon, Tony is staring at the bloodied bodies of two college students, brutally murdered while riding inside the cable car to Dursey Island. The authorities have questions for Tony; questions that make it apparent he's a suspect. But Tony has questions of his own, such as how did the students' throats get cut while suspended above the sea, when eyewitnesses swear no one else got into or out of the cable car?

Although no longer a reporter, the mystery sparks Tony's curiosity, and the tragedy sparks his determination to find the killer. He doesn't know his quest will lead him into the dark and terrifying world of two powerful crime syndicates, one Irish and one Russian. While dodging a sniper's bullets, uncovering a drug smuggling operation, fighting off kidnappers, and resisting the temptations of a lovely Irish witness, Tony faces two life-changing struggles: finding a meaningful future without his identity as a journalist; and staying one step ahead of the rival gangs that have only one thing in common - both want him dead.