The North Avenue Irregulars

Michael Hill has just been hired as the new reverend at North Avenue Presbyterian, he and his two adolescent children Carmel and Dean moving to New Campton, California into the house next to the church in the process. Michael finds he has many hurdles to overcome. There is a dwindling congregation, his main job to increase church membership. Anne Woods, the church secretary and daughter of the previous longtime reverend who retired, likes the way things have always been done at the church, which includes she and her father having chaired all the church committees in an "if you want things done, do it yourself" mentality. He finds that she is partly right in that many of the congregants, while well meaning, indeed would bungle such responsibility even if they did have an interest. In running the church, he finds that he runs into what he considers a bigger problem in the town as a whole, namely that there exists illegal gambling on a large scale by organized crime, in essence what he believes controls the town administration. After hearing Michael passionately speak, albeit impromptu in place of what was supposed to be a standard prayer, against the illegal gambling on a televised public service announcement, he gets chastised by Anne and the church presbytery for politicking. However, special investigators Marv Fogleman and Tom Voories with the Treasury Department, ask, on the sly, for Michael's help in breaking up the organized illegal gambling in New Campton, all they wanting being a few trustworthy men to make a few bets at the known bookie sites and testify as such in court. With none of the male congregants willing to get involved, Michael is only able to provide five female congregants, and one honorary "female" member, they a disparate bunch but eager to do their part. Despite Marv's belief that the six may be able to pull it off in the crime syndicate never suspecting a bunch of "ditzy" women, they instead bungle things so badly as to get Marv to the point of a nervous breakdown. With or without the Treasury Department support, Michael and his six "operatives" decide to aim for what will be the most damaging but most difficult aspect of the syndicate to locate and shut down, namely their "bank". With Michael already a known from the PSA and as the six become more and more known to the crime syndicate, their lives may be placed into jeopardy in their entirety, from their relationships to friends and family who are on a need to know basis, to their livelihoods including Michael's, to their lives. The church itself may also be placed at risk if Max Roca, the head of the syndicate, feels they as a collective are becoming too much of an irritant. Roca may not however understand the determination of the group and what is actually driving their motivation.