The Fire Cats of London

Asta and Ash are young wildcat kittens living happily in the countryside, and learning how to hunt, until their mother is killed and they are captured, to be sold to be an apothecary in the London of 1666.  They are put into cages with other animals, although a kind woman called Miriam, a Jew with her own problems, tried to buy them to rescue them. They are regularly drugged so that the apothecary can take their blood and whiskers, but the house cat, called Beauty, convinces Ash that they are serving a noble purpose, and he becomes besotted by her. Asta is more sceptical though, and she escapes to Miriam’s house. At the time, bear baiting was a popular spectacle, and some of Miriam’s friends rescue a bear and her cub, Lipa, but the mother bear sacrifices herself to save her cub. The plot gets complicated, as the kind rescuers try to protect the animals from the bad men who are searching for them, and the Great Fire of London has begun as the animals are fleeing.

The title is somewhat misleading, but it puts the story in a historical context. There is quite a lot of background explanation and description of the times, particularly the cruelty of humans towards animals, and some of the vocabulary is over the top: e.g. some dogs circling the apothecary’s house report that they saw Beauty in this much detail on the other side of a window: “Its pupils dilated with pleasure to see us suffer”. Asta’s transformation from a scared kitten to a resourceful escapee and rescuer is suspiciously fast, but, although not an easy read, this is a good story.