MARTINMalone's instinct that now was time for him to write about his duties in the volatile and dangerous zone that was Lebanon in the 1980s was spot on . . . there can hardly be a more valuable period than the present for such an account to be read.

The dust has barely settled on the recent deadly flare-up in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, sparked off by the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by militia and leading to a campaign of rocket attacks into Lebanon that led to massive civilian deaths.

Irish troops served 23 years with the Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), from 1978 to 2001. Malone was centrestage, as a military policeman (MP) who served five voluntary tours of duty at the height of the mid-'80s and early '90s conflict.

Writing mainly from his diaries of the time, Malone recounts the graphic details of war and peacekeeping. He witnessed one such early incident in 1986 when Amal guerrillas attacked a South Lebanese Army (SLA) position at Kafra. In the ensuing return fire, a shell struck a woman's home, leaving just her foot for evidence that she had ever existed. When Nepalese UN troops got to the scene, one of them was torn apart by another shell.

But Malone does not attempt to shock with endless bloody tales. He honestly depicts days of mundane boredom and being half the world away from his wife on Christmas Day . . . giving a complete insight into soldiering in a foreign warzone.

In a land replete with heavily armed actors, Malone strikes a fair line in his observation on all sides. Some observations are fascinating. He suggests that Hezbollah's outrage and grief in response to the killing of Lebanese civilians by Israeli artillery conceals the militia's awareness that any provocation against the Israelis will lead to just such a result.

"The Hezbollah organisation understands the Israeli mindsetf the Israeli will shoot 10 [Lebanese] people dead in order to kill a lone terrorist. The Hezbollah loosen their rockets from positions close to civilian and UN locations, drawing Israeli artillery into raining shells upon them, the effect often catastrophic."

Malone lays bare a soldier's motivation for volunteering for a risk-laden assignment such as UN peacekeeping, especially in a poorly paid army. "The first trip was about earning money, the medal and wanting the experience. The others were done to earn even more extra moneyf soldiers weren't paid a lot in those days so the chance to earn roughly £4,000 wasn't something easily spurned."

The author's opinion on the value of a continued UN peacekeeping presence in Lebanon is unambiguous. "The UN are pig in the middle and can't do a thing to prevent innocent people being used as pawns by both sidesf it's time to move on, they're not f***in' wanted."

Likewise, his observations about the effect of his many UN tours on his family are frank. He spent precious time away from his two young sons and his wife Bernadette over a cumulative period of two-and-half years as a professional soldier overseas. It was not worth it, he says. "Too much service abroad is detrimental to the family. It is difficult enough to keep the stitches together in a relationship without absences of six months occurring on a frequent basis."

Malone's writing is accessible and colloquial, not surprising for an acclaimed novelist who won the Francis McManus Award for short-story writing.

Almost nothing changes in Lebanon, Malone observes, except the date. The Lebanon Diaries is a valuable and timely account of Irish soldiering, in one of the UN's most complex and at time volatile assignments.