Cork, Ireland, 1923. When, one wet March morning, Reverend Mother Aquinas discovers a body at the gate of the convent chapel, she immediately sends for one of her former pupils, Police Sergeant Patrick Cashman, to investigate. Dead bodies are not unusual in the poverty-stricken slums of Cork, but this one is dressed in evening finery; in her handbag is a dance program for the exclusive Merchants' Ball held the previous evening--and a midnight ticket for the Liverpool ferry. Against the backdrop of a country in the midst of Ireland's Civil War, the Reverend Mother, Sergeant Cashman and Dr. Scher, an enlightened physician and friend, seek out the truth as to the identity of the victim--and her killer.