"Willie John Mahoney" traces the immigration of an Irish farming couple who leave their famine stricken family potato farm in Limerick, Ireland in 1922.

During their passage to America, Will and Mary Mahoney meet Vito Rizzi, a man of honor from Palermo, also fleeing an intolerable situation in Benito Mussolini’s Mafia-hostile Italy.

The dyslexia of Willie John Mahoney, the only son of Will and Mary, will force him from school and into the streets of New York where be becomes the head of an Italian gang. Willie is best friends with Augi Andoleni, Jr., the only son of Will’s employer, a rather frail and studios young man -- the complete opposite of Willie.

Tragedy touches the Andoleni family as the lives of the Mahoneys and Vito Rizzi will forever be intertwined along with their colorful neighbors in Little Italy, set against a backdrop of prohibition, their neighborhood’s Mafia-rich environment and World War II.