Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand

Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand
Published: 1950
Book Tropes: Unreliable characters, mysterious letters, remote houses
Recommended for fans of: Agatha Christie // Hitchcock movies // Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier // Gothic literature // Wales

Katinka Jones works with a women’s magazine and starts a correspondence with the lonely Mrs. Amista Carlyon. Amista lives in a very remote village in Wales. Tinka develops a fondness for her and decides to visit her. But surprise, surprise. There’s nobody called Amista living in that old house. So who was writing those letters? And who is this mysterious Mr. Carlyon who seems to hide a desperate secret of his own?

“And in Katinka Jones, the Welsh blood of her father’s family rose up and painted for her mind’s eye, a scene she loved: the grey valley where the brave green struggled through the earth’s scarred surface under the soft Welsh rain: an old house, clinging to its hard-won foothold on the stony breast of the mountain; the river lying like a silver sword between a young girl and the companionship of men — of all men but Carlyon. ”

Did I like this book?

This was so good! I’d never heard of Brand before The Green Capsule recommended her work some time back. Within the first 10 pages, I was totally hooked. There’s something delightfully ominous about the way the plot unfolds. When Tinka finds out her pen pal doesn’t exist, we feel that very real danger with her.

But Tinka persists. For one reason after another, she sticks on in the village to find out more. She also has a knack of jumping to conclusions at the drop of a hat, so she works wonderfully well as one of those unreliable narrators in fiction. She annoyed me, but I also kind of admired her.

Typically, detective fiction books tend to have a grand finale event where the culprit gets revealed or some other secret is exposed. Cat and Mouse, on the other hand, is a series of smaller crisis points. That isn’t to say this structure doesn’t work; there’s constant uneasiness dogging the reader. Like a cat plays with mice, Brand plays tantalizingly with readers’ expectations.

I will say that the twisty ending doesn’t quite sit right. The final reveal of the motives was a bit over-the-top, though I suspect it might have been a satire on some of the prevailing themes in the genre at that time. If you can make adjustments for a slightly less dazzling finish than the captivating first 80% of the book, then all’s well.

Overall

You should definitely give Brand’s books a try if you like Dame Christie’s work. Green for Danger (there’s a 1946 movie adaptation too) is also quite good, but Cat and Mouse is a good gateway book for Brand’s fiction.

Rating: 8 of 10

Have you read Brand’s work before? Have you read Cat and Mouse? What other works did this book remind you of? Tell me!