John Boyne is the successful author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a story essentially for younger readers which made a compelling movie, starring David Thewlis as a beastly Nazi running a concentration camp and satisfyingly punished at the culmination of the film. In his new novel, Boyne also has a suitable group of villains: the reactionary, tyrannical and mendacious Irish Catholic Church, which facilitates the deeds of priestly paedophiles. Boyne has that gift of drawing you into the narrative right from the beginning, and at first his tale seems inviting and warm, evoking a congenial side of Dublin life where all kinds of everyone meet for coffee at Bewley’s in Grafton Street. But it is soon revealed to be a discomforting tale of a priest’s unsatisfactory life, told by