I read Good Behaviour in one sitting, and, when I'd finished, shook the book like a greedy child hoping one more goody would fall out.

Keane's characters are the impecunious Anglo-Irish gentry between the wars, and her central character is Aroon St. Charles, one of those poisonous unmarried female relations who infest every extended family….

But as Aroon recounts her path to manipulative spinsterhood, Keane performs the difficult trick of getting us inside this unattractive, overweight woman to see the naive but appealing girl she once was. Aroon is betrayed by her adored brother Hubert…. She is betrayed by her mother, who regards her from birth as a rival for the love of the unfaithful Major St. Charles. She is betrayed by the father himself, who loves her but can never quite take seriously her hopes for love. When, at last, Aroon has her sticky revenge, the reader...