The Good People

Hannah Kent Picador €16.99

Co. Kerry, 1825. Following the sudden deaths of her husband and daughter, Nora Leahy is left to care for her four-year-old grandson Michael, a once-healthy child now listless and enfeebled – and who she increasingly believes to be a changeling responsible for a series of unexplained local events. To cure the boy she seeks the assistance of the local healer, with tragic consequences.

In hauntingly beautiful prose, Kent evokes a claustrophobic, rain-sodden valley, where poverty is rife and superstition and folklore battle with the oppressive dictates of the Catholic Church. Gripping and compelling.