Copper Beech

In the Irish town of  Schancarrig, the young people carve their initials--and  those of their loves-into the copper beech tree in  front of the schoolhouse.

But not even Father  Gunn, the parish priest, who knows most of what goes  on behind Shancarrig''s closed doors, or Dr. Jims,  the village doctor, who knows all the rest,  realizes that not everything in the placid village is  what it seems.

From the Hardcover edition.