In 1920 two young girls discovered they had a half sister and brother they did not know they had. What happened? Why were they separated? And why wouldn't their father tell them anything about their mother? In Albuquerque young Kathleen struggled amidst poverty, her silent father and her abusive and unpredictable brother Henry. Thrilled to find she has another sister and brother, she vows to find them someday. In Chicago Clarice grew up amidst wealth, idealizes her department store magnate father and adores her sensitive brother, Clay. Headstrong, furious, Clarice believes her mother abandoned her for Kathleen and Henry. Excitement begins when Kathleen leaves home at seventeen and places a classified ad in the Chicago Tribune to find Clarice and Clay. Both women run head on into the Great Depression, Prohibition and organized crime. The quest to find out the truth about their mother takes the reader from sleepy Albuquerque in the 1920's to Chicago's tight knit Irish community, a Hooverville shanty town and an old priest's memory to discover secrets long hidden. The exciting climax forces them to confront their their silent fathers, their troubled brothers, and change the course of all their lives.