IRISH WHISKEY

This third helping of Oirish whimsy does everything it can to prevent Dermot Coyne and Nuala Anne McGrail (Irish Lace, 1996, etc.) from reaching the hymeneal altar. Nuala Anne is seeing visions again. This time it's a gangster who's buried next to the Coyne family plot—or rather isn't buried there, insists Nuala Anne, who claims legendary Jimmy (Sweet Rolls) Sullivan has been AWOL ever since he was plugged and planted back in 1926. Always obliging, Dermot begins to look into Sweet Rolls's history with the Capone gang, but he doesn't have much time, because his nuptials are approaching rapidly—though none too rapidly for the lustfully virginal couple—and there's an unwelcome last-minute wrinkle: The bride's insufferable older brother Laurence, convinced that Dermot's family and finances are equally disreputable, demands that the wedding be called off. Ordinarily Laurence would be no match for fiery Nuala Anne or her wealthy swain, but just as he's issuing his most high-handed demands, a vengeful old school chum and a careerist US attorney join forces to get Dermot indicted on charges of fraud, citing the $3 million accident that allowed him to quit the Chicago commodities exchange and become the bestselling author of Irish Love. It's this last complication, in fact, that ends up running away with the story. Though fans of Dermot and Nuala Anne's overplotted pair of historical/courtship romances may complain that the story of how Dermot beats the Feds is much less ambitious than the others—Greeley adds about as much mystery to the brew as the lovers do water to their Jameson's—the smiling fairy-tale intrigue of Dermot's troubles perfectly suits the blandishments of his narrative, whose blarney is thick enough to cut with a chainsaw (as non-Irish readers may yearn to do). Accomplished lightweight suspense, though in honest truth there's less suspense about what became of Sweet Rolls's corpse than about what Nuala Anne will be wearing under her wedding gown.