In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle....
A police informant is found dead in a boarding-school situated near the border between Ulster and Eire. There are three suspects: the protestant school headmistress; Marley, an unfrocked missionary priest; and Benny, a seventeen-year-old criminal who has taken sanctuary in the school...
