January, 1942. London is dark - and not just because of the blackout.
The worst of the Blitz may be over, but still the city’s a treacherous place. Buses run without headlights. Bomb rubble lies underfoot. Looters and petty criminals roam the shattered streets. And somewhere in the ruins stalks a serial killer the papers have dubbed The Beast of the Blackout.
As a fear of death, delivered not from the sky but lurking in the bomb sites, grips South London, four unlikely allies are assembled by Civil Defence warden Albert, self-appointed shepherd patrolling his nightly patch. Edwin, Bette and Cat share nothing in common, except one extraordinary secret: each has killed an abuser and got away with it. Now, forged by trauma and driven to deliver retribution to those who hurt and harm, they come together to stop a monster the police have failed to catch.
What follows is a daring hunt through bombed streets and moral grey zones, as the mismatched murderers plot to save the Beast’s next victim, Violet and deliver their own brutal justice. But this is no simple vigilante tale. All brought here by their own harrowing journey, each comes uniquely equipped for the kill: Edwin with his knowledge of poisons, Bette her muscle, Cat her courage, while Albert will weave the net to catch the killer in.
Drawing on meticulous historical research, the novel explores the lurid world of Victorian poisons and poisoners; early silent films and the lasting damage left by the First World War on not just those who fought, but the people they came home to. While rooted in the past, the book also speaks urgently to the present, offering a reflection on what it means to be and feel ‘safe’, and how even now a woman may put herself in danger just walking home alone.
A gripping and morally daring novel, All Cats Are Grey offers a haunting portrait of wartime London, and a powerful meditation on justice, survival and the thin line between right and wrong.
I'm delighted to be sharing my review of All Cats Are Grey by Susan Barrett today. Many thanks to Kelly Pike from Folk PR for inviting me to take part in the blog tour and to Bathwick Hill Publishing for my advance copy of the novel.
All Cats Are Grey is set in a familiar period but the Second World War is more of a backdrop to this study of darkness and deception which follows four people whose brushes with death and the less salubrious aspects of life, lead them all to be irrevocably changed.
The timeline here isn't linear and the narrative switches between the urgency of the present to the sweet moments of pleasure and tumultuous ordeals of the past. Bette – formerly known as Joy – is forced to be carer to her mum Glad but it's only later we learn what secrets this brash young woman hides. Meanwhile, Cat lives alone but takes the sort of risks which threaten more than her reputation, particularly with a serial killer using the blackout to target his victims. By contrast, Albert and Edwin are battle-scarred, both literally and figuratively and these Great War veterans have their own stories of love and loss, grief and revenge.
While never the sort of book which paints wartime Britain in its familiar rose-coloured hue of ubiquitous harmony and keeping calm and carrying on, the slow-burning revelations mean All Cats Are Grey is almost insidiously sinister. From the unsettling awareness of the heinous wrongs visited upon Cat as a child to the tragedy which brings Albert to take drastic action, this poignant story explores those decisions which change everything. Edwin, too, has his own secrets; after stagnating for years with his controlling parents, even after his years fighting abroad, he finds excitement in reading about poisoners and their various methods of dispatching their victims. Circumstances draw him and Bette together and in spite of everything, there is something rather touching about their relationship.
Alongside these four characters, the narrative also follows Violet who perhaps best encapsulates the vision of the typical wartime heroine. Living with a mother who is slowly unravelling since her husband was called up, a lost cat brings romance to Violet before the horrors of this war reveal humanity's darkness on both an unimaginably vast and a seedy, individual scale. Violet is part of the four protagonists' roles in the thrilling denouement which asks readers to consider which crime is the greatest here.
The Beast of the Blackout might be striking fear into the lives of the young women who need to return home in the shadows but while everything builds towards the inevitable confrontation we know must come, All Cats Are Grey is really about the hidden intimacies and endeavours which are borne not from evil but from a need to survive, to seek retribution or to escape.
All Cats Are Grey is a richly evocative, thought-provoking exploration of a darker, more threatening side to wartime London but while is never flinches from examining the dangerous and squalid, it's not short of hope too. An intriguing, compulsive read and one I highly recommend.
All Cats Are Grey is published by Bathwick Hall Publishing and can be purchased in ebook here.
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About the Author
Susan Barrett gave up a job in TV production to be at home with young children and to do what she always secretly wanted to do, write. She is the author of three previous novels, Fixing Shadows and The Inconstant Husband, (Headline Review) and The Housekeepers (Bathwick Hill).
She divides her year between London and Umbria.
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