It's been a rough year for twenty-six-year-old Mags Murray. First she learns that her dad isn't her biological father, a secret her mother took to her grave. Then her beloved Irish grandmother passes away at Christmas while Mags is visiting her from the States. Now Mags must host her grandmother's wake and sell her cottage. A cottage Mags inherited but her odd jobs won't enable her to keep.
Shortly after the funeral, a young man, Finn O'Brien, arrives at the cottage with an old photograph. Finn believes the boys in the photo are a clue to his father's identity. Mags can sympathize with him, and because she often helped her genealogist grandmother uncover skeletons in people's closets, including hers, she agrees to assist Finn.
But searching for Finn's father stirs up trouble. Finn is in a near-fatal car crash that wasn't an accident. So Mags and her childhood friend Biddy McCarthy investigate why someone wants to prevent Finn from finding his father. Questioning the quirky locals proves a wee bit difficult.
It might take a fake Irish wake to reveal Finn's father and the would-be murderer. But what if the two turn out to be the same person?