Declan Burke fled Ireland forty years ago and never looked back. Now settled in New York, he thinks he's put the old country behind him, until he reads the obituary of one Cathal Murphy. The obituary, he sees at once, is not about Murphy at all. It is a coded indictment of Burke's own life. And an announcement of his impending death. Halifax lawyer Monty Collins investigates the obit with its allusions to Burke's IRA past. Collins gets no help from Burke, who -- good soldier to the end -- keeps the silence of the grave. But Burke's denial becomes harder to maintain following a burst of gunfire at a family wedding. The shooting brings another old soldier onto the field: Leo Killeen, the commanding officer of Burke's former battalion in Dublin. But he also has secrets to protect. When a body is found in a rundown Brooklyn flat, Collins wonders just how far Killeen will go to keep those secrets under wraps. From the farms of Ireland to the tenements of New York City, Monty is confronted by a cast of enigmatic characters, including the owner of a nightclub frequented by the New York mob; a sultry chanteuse; and Burke's hotheaded son Francis, whose resentment and dubious activities set the family on a road to destruction. Monty isn't the only one who is surprised when he reaches the end of the road. Burke too must now confront the suspicion that he has been manipulated all along by an unseen hand.

Lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins is used to defending murderers, and occasionally investigating murders himself. But he can't round up the usual suspects this time. The blood-drenched body of Reinhold Schellenberg, a world-renowned German theologian, has been found on the altar of an old church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during Vespers on Saint Cecilia's day. The man has nearly been decapitated. The controversial priest, once a top insider in the Vatican, was known to provoke strong feelings in Catholics of all ideological stripes. Now those feelings have overflowed with horrifying results. His friend Father Brennan Burke has just opened a choir school for priests, monks, nuns, and other Catholics devoted to the glorious music of the Church's past. So Monty has before him an international cast of suspects, including a flamboyant Sicilian priest who left the Vatican under a cloud of suspicion; an eccentric English monk who has penned scathing attacks on Schellenberg's actions during the Second Vatican Council; a disgruntled American ex-priest who can't quite let go; a church lady with a history of violence; a Vatican enforcer; and, most perplexing of all, a police officer from the former East Berlin. The case lifts the lid on fascinating episodes of Church history, thwarted ambitions, old grudges and long-simmering disputes. Monty and Brennan's investigation takes them on a road trip to Italy: to the corridors of power and the glittering museums of the Vatican, the elegant apartments of an operatic diva, and the cloistered grounds of medieval monasteries. Monty immerses himself in a world of ancient chants, votive candles, stained glass, incense, and the music of the spheres. The more he learns, the more questions he has. In the end, he finds himself turning to the saints for answers

Stage musical based on the 2000 film of the same name which is set in County Durham during the 1984 miners' strike. Young Billy Elliot (Matteo Zecca/Mitchell Tobin/Bradley Perret/Elliott Hanna) becomes fascinated with the ballet lessons which are being held in the same hall as his boxing class. The ballet teacher, Mrs Wilkinson (Ruthie Henshall), recognises his potential and encourages him to join her class. As his talent gradually reveals itself, it becomes clear that Billy should be attending the Royal Ballet School in London, but with his father (Deka Walmsley)'s opposition and the extreme poverty which descends on the area during the strike, Billy's future is far from certain.