This is a book about rage, as Chrissie Foster says in her opening sentence. It is motivated and driven by rage and, if this is not an oxymoron, it is a panegyric to rage.

Few people could have more cause for rage than Foster, two of whose three daughters were raped at primary school in Melbourne by Catholic priest Kevin O’Donnell, a paedophile monster about whom the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne knew for fifty years yet did nothing. One of Chrissie’s daughters, Emma, took her own life, while the second, Katie, who turned to drink to cope, was left in a wheelchair after a car crash.

As religion reporter for The Age, I often sat alongside the Fosters in the 2013 Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into how institutions responded to child abuse, which they attended throughout. I knew the rage must be smouldering inside – it would be impossible not to be – but I was constantly impressed by their quiet, stoic dignity and the calm, rational way their passion was expressed.