"There's evil people around, Dermot love. . . . I knew about them even before me dream. Really evil people. Won't we have to fight them!"

This latest tale of Nuala Anne McGrail, the engagingly fey heroine of such irresistible books as Irish Cream and Irish Lace, begins with a foreboding dream of some terrible impending evil. Dermot Michael Coyne, Nuala's adoring husband and spear-carrier, knows better than to ignore his wife's second sight, but from whence does this nameless peril originate? From the Homeland Security goons determined to deport the Irish-born Nuala on the basis of nothing more than vague suspicions and accusations? From the spiteful neighbors campaigning against their family's beloved Irish wolfhounds? Or from the tangled dealings of the Currans, a prosperous clan of Irish-American aristocrats, with whom Nuala and Dermot have recently become acquainted?