"Mount Olivet" is the third in a trilogy of the Irish in Washington, DC, following "Swampoodle" and "St. Patrick's Day." It's 1993 and the Rileys have done well. John Riley, third generation CEO of Hennessey Construction has made the company a regional force since taking over from his mother, Mary, in 1968. His sister, Mary Kate, is the head of her own New York advertising agency with his brother, Michael, a lawyer in the power canyons of Washington politics and commerce. An engineer, John finds himself diverted from running Hennessey Construction to oversee the restructuring of a subsidiary land company run by his daughter, Bright. As the story opens, John and Bright are taken out of a meeting in Chicago by news of Michael's emergency by-pass surgery. Mary Kate has also returned to be with Michael, burdened by the imminent departure of her only son for military service in Israel. Over the following week, John Riley comes to a full understanding of the life values he and the other have taken from their heritage, most especially from Mary whose counsel draws on her appreciation of love as a life force and the faith that has brought her to it.