Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men

Journalist Dan Starkey, hero of Divorcing Jack, is back, a few Guinnesses past sober, but quick as ever with the sarcastic rejoinder - and this time his knack for adventure, and misadventure, takes him to the unsuspecting streets of New York City.

Starkey has signed on to cover the heavyweight title fight between the Irish national champion, Fat Boy McMaster, and Iron Mike Tyson. McMaster is a far cry from Evander Holyfield, but despite the hundred-to-one odds against them, the St. Patrick’s Day fight promises to be a monstrous payday for the entire Irish contingent: Fat Boy himself, his wife (the only Catholic in the whole bunch), his doddering trainer, his small-time manager, and his childhood chum turned recently unemployed terrorist. And it’s a lucky break for Starkey himself, who is more desperate than even this ragged bunch for a relaxing sojourn away from the bloody conflict of his homeland - and of his home itself, where his marriage is dissolving as quickly as the ceasefire.

But when the stakes are this high, the Big Apple has more to dish out than fat paychecks and peaceful vacations. At his pre-fight press conference, McMaster sets off racial and political mayhem when he makes a few ill-advised remarks about the preponderance of black people in New York City, incurring the immediate enmity of a Black Muslim paramilitary group.

As Starkey's quiet holiday crumbles, his chronicle morphs into a quick-paced thriller complete with kidnappings, inner-city commando operations, and an elaborately sinister whale-watching cruise - none of which is enough to stem the flow of Starkey’s crackling repartee. It turns out his sidesplittingly funny gallows humor is only that much more inspired when Starkey himself is barely dodging the hangman’s noose.