SCARY reading for Bono and his wife Ali last week - a new book on the life and times of the notorious Irish criminal Martin Cahill alleges that Bono's eldest daughter Jordan, now 18, was the subject of a kidnap plot which went off the rails thanks only to the benevolent intervention of Cahill himself. The book, called Martin Cahill, My Father, was written by the late gangster's daughter Frances, and goes on sale this week. It's generated headlines, naturally, due to the kidnap claim, and Frances writes that her dad, was set against causing any harm to Bono and his family.

Apparently a criminal gang had been staking out Bono's home for months with an eye towards Jordan, who would have been held for a ransom of *6 million.

"He told (the gang) it was

a bad idea," Frances writes. "Martin had nothing against Bono's family. They had never done him any harm and he wasn't going to get involved."

Skeptics, including the Gardai (Irish police), have poured a whole bunch of cold water on Frances' story not only about the supposed kidnap plot but the entire book in general. Cahill, they claim, was a cold-blooded thug who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

"It is a very shoddy and pathetic money-making exercise," said Gerry O'Carroll, a retired Garda murder squad detective who was well acquainted with Cahill.

He rebuffed any suggestion that Cahill suddenly got a conscience to prevent the kidnapping of Bono's daughter, calling Frances' claims "arrant nonsense with not a scintilla of truth."

"To portray him as a mixture of Robin Hood and Mother Teresa is totally disingenuous and a complete and total fallacy," O'Carroll added.He surely speaks the truth. Cahill was a violent criminal from his teens up until the time he was shot dead, reportedly by IRA members. His infamy in Ireland was so great that a film on his life, The General, was made in 1998. It starred Brendan Gleeson and Jon Voight, and was directed by the renowned John Boorman.