January 1929, Ballyscat, Co. Kerry, Ireland. Patrick O'Grimwhistle a married man with multiple offspring is about to turn forty-one. Once a nationalist rebel and aspiring poet, he is now unhappily an assistant bank manager. But things are about to change. Two years previously Patrick had granted a bank loan to an eccentric anthropologist for an expedition to Central America. The man is reported missing and Patrick is charged with safely returning...