Mona Quirke, as usual, is having her adult children for Christmas. The youngest arrives with an unexpected guest and nothing will ever be the same again in the Quirke household.

Mona Quirke has a secret. When her daughter arrives on Christmas Eve with a strange young American we are on the road to discovering what that secret is. By the time Christmas Day is over there are two dead bodies in the garden and the Quirke family are all changed in various ways.—Charlie McCarthy