IT'S amazing sometimes how what you had figured for a molehill ends up turning into a mountain. When there was talk late last year of a Jack O'Connor book coming out in the summer time, the general response would have been a so-what shrug of the shoulders.

O'Connor always had a bit of spikiness about him, fair enough, but he was from Kerry and of Kerry and, when there are tales to be told, Kerry football people are generally the least reliable witnesses around. And they take immense pleasure in being so.

That Tom Humphries ended up drawing a fine book out of O'Connor isn't a surprise. That O'Connor was willing to freely and fully put his thoughts together for general consumption is perhaps, although only to those of us who under-estimated him. But that it would cause such a stir upon its release, well that was most unexpected.

Because what makes the book such a compelling read is the fact that although O'Connor takes a sally rod to the hind-quarters of a few of the more sacred GAA cows . . . the Golden Years Kerry team, the omerta of an All Ireland-winning dressing room, even the dreaded spectre of a manager being, ahem, compensated, for his time (although we don't like to talk about that one, cough, cough) . . . he never comes across as sour or embittered or a whinger. This definitely isn't one of those books where the author is intent on settling scores and lashing out indiscriminately or . . . Lord save us . . . setting the record straight.

Instead, what emerges is an ordinary man trying his best to cope with an extraordinary situation. A man who knows his limitations and knows all the while that those limitations are getting an airing in every pub, mart and living room in his county. And one who you can't help rooting for the further the book goes on, mostly because he never hides what he's feeling and never pretends to have all the answers.

There's an honesty to Keys To The Kingdom that not many sports books are ever interested in reaching. To achieve this, O'Connor includes details of text messages and one-to-one meetings with players and selectors that they might not be overly happy with, seeing as they are unlikely to have known at the time that they might end up on the shelves of Easons. But that's their concern, not ours, and the book is so much the better for the inclusion of all the little squabbles and skirmishes. You can't make an omelette, and all that.

Bit by little bit, book by not-so-little book, we are being brought inside dressing rooms and inside the thoughts and deeds of those at the pinnacle of the national games these days. The bar has never sat higher when it comes to GAA books than it is sitting right now. Jack O'Connor's clears it with plenty to spare.