SET in the countryside of western Ireland, this haunting story of madness and murder concerns the exploits of the Kinderschreck - a seemingly mythical, but unfortunately all too real man.

Michen O'Kane terrorises his neighbourhood from a young age, living out the kind of deranged fantasies that few would dare even to dream. The victim of serious abuse as a boy, he finds it easy - even pleasurable - to abuse others in adulthood.

No one intervenes, fearful of turning his violent attentions on them and their family, until a young woman and her child disappear, closely followed by the local priest.

The inevitable conclusion of their disappearance - their sacrifice in the wilderness at the altar of the Kinderschreck's unbridled delusions - is truly shocking and almost unbearably moving (I had to put the book down for five minutes to collect my thoughts and pop into my son's room to make sure he was sleeping soundly in his bed).

Evocative, highly effective and beautifully told from start to finish, In The Forest is a fine book from one of Ireland's finest authors. Her journey into the warped mind of the Kinderschreck - based on the real life killer Brendan O'Donnell, who kidnapped and murdered 29-year-old Imelda Riley, her three-year-old son Liam and County Galway curate Father Joe Walshe in 1994 - is a literary tour de force.

Updated: 09:26 Wednesday, July 02, 2003