Fat Boy McMaster is a hopeless heavyweight boxer (but nonetheless champion of Ireland) on his way to a monstrous payday in the form of a Saint Patrick's Day fight in Madison Square Garden with Mike Tyson. Belfast journalist Dan Starkey comes over to write a book about the event, eager to escape the bloody conflict of his homeland -- and his home itself, where his marriage is dissolving as quickly as the cease-fire. But the Irish team's arrival in New York sets off racial and political mayhem, along with a problematic romance for our married hero. Starkey's holiday may be ruined, but his loser sports chronicle has morphed into a quick-paced thriller complete with kidnappings, inner-city commando operations, and an elaborately sinister whale-watching cruise.