Recovering from a mistaken medical diagnosis and a failed suicide attempt, Jack Taylor takes a job as a night-shift security job that involves an off-the-record search for a first true book of heresy, currently in possession of a rogue priest and involving the multifaceted woman who has intrigued Jack for years.

PI Jack Taylor is called to investigate a student murder--connected to an elusive Mr. K whom he remembers meeting at an airport. After several more murders and too many coincidental encounters, Jack believes he may have met his nemesis.

"Jack Taylor has finally escaped his violent life in Galway for a quiet retirement in the country. But on a day trip back into the city to sort out his affairs, Jack is hit by a truck in front of Galway's Famine Memorial, left in a coma but mysteriously without a scratch on him. When he awakens weeks later, he finds Ireland in a frenzy over the so-called "Miracle of Galway." People have become convinced that the two children seen tending to him are...

Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober—off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. The main reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't—can't, because the dealer's sister is dead, and the guards have

...

Juggling a precarious balance between his physical and addiction recovery efforts, former cop Jack Taylor investigates the work of a vigilante killer who has been sending him cryptic invitations to join him, an effort that jeopardizes Taylor's livelihood, friends and mental health.