Cornet-Player Who Betrayed Ireland

''Father,'' I said, feeling I might as well get it over while I had him in a good humour, ''I had it all arranged to kill my grandmother.''

Praised as Ireland''s Chekhov, Frank O''Connor was a modern master of the short story. From an amateur brass band divided by partisanship to English soldiers who befriend their Irish captors, and from a child''s comic confession to the end of a small-town frien...