Three men are off from Coatbridge to Cucuruzzu, Italy, to do some construction work in a monastery in exchange for a holiday ('grub and a bed - that's the deal'). Some holiday it turns out to be, what with optional Mass at five in the morning, a mad monk and the salami fiasco. But even this remote and tranquil mountain cannot offer sanctuary from the past and the story of Jimmy Brogan, a wildly original, broken man. As the run up to Easter Sunday in the monastery becomes more and more farcical, so Jimmy's story builds to a chilling climax - and suddenly the past explodes into the present...