Incorrigible boor Jack Taylor is fired from the Garda (Irish national police) for brutality against a government minister. His experience, some contacts and cheap rates get him started as private eye in all but name, assisted by his even less law-abiding buddy, painter Sutton. Anne Henderson hires him, suggesting her missing teenage daughter was the latest in a series of suspicious 'suicides', which he traces to sleazy manager Ford's factory and illegal sex recordings. That turns out only the tip of the iceberg, even before Jack is beaten badly and old publican Sean is fatally run over.

A man is brutally murdered by an unseen assailant. We glimpse the murder weapon: A steel spearhead with a scythe-like hook on the side, mounted on a shaft. Some days later and Jack Taylor is returning to his beloved Galway after having been away for a year. Jack is clean and sober. Now he's back, off the booze and determined to stay away from trouble; determined not to get sucked back into the cycle of death and violence again. Jack's resolve not to take on any jobs is immediately tested when the dead man's mother who knows Jack begs for his help. To complicate Jack's investigation, an enthusiastic young man, Cody, who hero-worships Jack as the best private eye in Ireland, shows up on his doorstep, wanting to be Jack's new partner in private investigations. Jack tells him to get lost. Worse, though, his old flame from "The Guards", the woman he still carries a torch for, Ann Hennessey comes back into his life when he least needs it. She is now in a relationship with a successful businessman - who also happens to beat her up. Jack is enraged, wants nothing more than to tear the guy's heart out. Jack then uncovers a group of vigilantes calling themselves The Pikemen, after old Irish Freedom Fighters, local men who are sick of what Galway has become and want to return to the way Galway used to be: A safe city, governed by The Twelve Tribes, who meted out justice to anyone who overstepped their mark. Realizing that Jack is close to cracking the case, The Pikemen offer Jack to join them. He is, after all, just like them: Hates injustice and sometimes metes out his own brand of justice. But Jack refuses. Then another murder is committed - Ann Hennessey's husband - and suddenly Jack finds himself the main suspect, with all the evidence pointing at him. Inspector Clancy has him arrested. Jack realizes that nobody believes his innocence, not Ann Hennessey who now never wants to see him again; not Clancy and even Kate thinks he did it. The naive, enthusiastic Cody is Jack's only ally. Jack escapes from custody and is forced to go on the run. With time running out and the net closing around him he must find the killer and prove his own innocence - before he is caught and convicted. Jack is pushed to the brink like never before. His very soul is at stake. By the end he realizes that the only way to see justice done is to do the very thing he has been trying to avoid: To become like the Pikemen.

Galway Private Investigator JACK TAYLOR is hired by the daughter of a former inmate of the infamous Magdalen Laundries to find the identity of a former nun, known only as LUCIFER, who was notorious for taking pleasure in torturing the girls. Jack has hardly begun his inquiries when he is warned off by local hard man BILL CASSELL. He also uncovers a seeming cover up when files which might have revealed the nun's identity are missing from Church Recored. The case grows more complicated when Jack discovers a connection between the execution style murders of two young men and the nun, Lucifer. Apparently someone is out to avenge themselves on Lucifer by killing those she holds dearest: Her nephews. What seemed like a simple case turns even more complicated for Jack when he accidentally causes the death of Bill Cassell's henchman. Now, not only are the Guards after Jack for his involvement in the henchman's death, but Bill wants a piece of him as well. It's a race against time for Jack to stop the third murder from happening, while at the same time the inevitable showdown with Bill grows ever nearer.