cover image The South Lawn Plot

The South Lawn Plot

Ray O'Hanlon, Gemma (Ingram, dist.), $24.95 (346p) ISBN 978-1-934848-87-6

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. 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. 5-city author tour. (Mar.)