An unsolved murder and a 150-year-old diary of an Irish soldier are inextricably linked to the past when scores of U.S. Army soldiers of Irish descent--refugees from the Great Famine--switched sides during the Mexican-American War. They joined the Mexicans knowing full well that if Mexico lost the war, they would be hanged as traitors.
The story begins with P.I. Joe Coopersmith who is hired to investigate the murder of an 84-year-old widow. With few clues and no suspects, he nearly gives up until he stumbles upon a bizarre plot to kill the descendants of the Irish soldiers from Mexico. The motive soon becomes clear when Coopersmith makes a startling discovery: a wealthy man named Raymond Harney Nielsen is trying to remove all evidence linking the descendants to U.S. Army Colonel William S. Harney, the notorious executioner of some of the Irish soldiers who were captured. Nielsen, who is a descendant of Colonel Harney, will stop at nothing, not even murder to quash reports that his ancestor was a cruel and sadistic officer.