The Fish Catcher

 

The Fish Catcher

 

The story opens in London in the early 1940's - it is a blitzed city. Up till now Mary Fissleborough and her sister have resisted being sent to the country to avoid the bombing, but when the Mulryne's house opposite is bombed out, killing little Orla, Mary reluctantly relents.

Two days later the sisters, in the company of five hundred strangers, become evacuees, departing Paddington station bound for Devon in the westcountry. They pitch up in a small country town where in the old cattle yard, along with an abandoned boy, Billy Grimes, they await anxiously with all the others, eager to find their new mum and dad.

Some of the kids are taken down to the coastal guesthouses, some to the Vicarage or the Smithy, but Billy and the Fissleborough sisters are driven on an old cart up into the hills to Wolfdale Hall.

Mary has always fancied herself as something of a private detective and it is not long before she is looking into the affairs at Wolfdale.

Why is the front bedroom always locked?

Who is the smooth stranger Oliver Tresco who glides about the Hall as if he owns the place?

Why is he not away fighting with all the other men?

And most of all, where is the daughter Cicely, who no one has seen?

The more Mary discovers the darker the picture appears to be.

But is it simply a figment of Mary's over-active imagination, or could they really be in danger at Wolfdale?

This is a novel for older children and adults.   

 

You can read the first two chapters by going here

Or you can read some back story to The Fish Catcher right here