Nineteenth-century Ireland was awash with secret societies, principally rural, and principally Catholic. Their function was to keep tenants on the land as they had always leased. The landlords that evicted the old tenants, and the 'land grabbers' (often Catholic) who took the new leases, were regarded as enemies. The most feared of the societies was the group known as the Ribbonmen, who enforced their ideals with brutal and horrendous practices - they castrated, tarred and feathered and even skinned their victims alive. In HOW TO MURDER A MAN, Carlo Gebler tells of a small rural community in County Monaghan, and the attempts to murder the landlord there. As in Gebler's highly acclaimed previous novel, THE CURE, it is inspired by a true story. His new novel is a fascinating glimpse of an untold part of Irish history, and traces the connections between these societies and the modern para-military groups.