A beautiful, powerful, sleek black panther, quite a prize indeed for someone with too much money and not enough sense. That's Jebb, an idle richie rich with a private zoo, and despite some gorgeous wrought iron filigree we know that the Cat, of course, cannot be caged. "As gripping as Jaws," and for once that ubiquitous blurb has some teeth, for this particular animal attack story concerns THE CAT'S predations on Jebb's home, the twisted little village of Wittlemead, and the rotten black heart that's exposed as the beast rends and tears through the flesh of its inhabitants. Wealthy, penny pinching Jebb skimped on his security measures, as the cat's escaped from that antique Victorian cage in his private menagerie and is now having his neighbors and passers by for lunch! Our zoo fool throws the odd honest cop's investigation back in his face with the bold announcement of his standing dinner plans with the Chief Constable - yes, it's that kind of town. And sitting on top of this steaming midden of sex, lies, and disemboweled corgis is Peter Gwynvor, last of a once-proud line, reduced to pathetic dinner parties in his crumbling manse with the handful of locals who will bother. There's the dull, droning chicken queen Lucy Maidstone (her hi-tech industrial flocks soon to be laid waste), the local charity monger slash rubbernecker Mrs. Stott (her corgis soon to be rent limb from limb), old scuzzy Jebb himself, and of course the promiscuous Claudia and her parents, the Major and Lydia, old Africa hands we're told. Claudia is double dealing with Peter and his manservant Mr. Spring, though her overheated plotting is of no concern to either man, both of them far too enraptured in their own miseries. The Cat has plans for all of them, or at least Fate has plans for them to meet the Cat ...
Little kids, corgi dogs and fox hounds, bored sentries, innocent chickens ... no one is safe when the Cat strikes. And despite Jebb's best efforts, soon the creature's depravations cannot be denied, and the entire county goes into a frenzy. Fleet Street comes calling, Claudia does a nude spread as the Cat Girl based on her close encounter (almost eaten while rolling in the grass with the stolid Mr. Spring), and Peter has to consider what all of this petty bullshit means: his titles, his land, his (lack of an) heir, this Wittlemead which seems to be rapidly shaking itself apart. It's all very, very British, and many of the cast find themselves unable to let go of the former glories and shame of Empire. The modern British Army is, of course, totally inept in their attempts to catch the Cat, but the Major believes his experience in Africa hunting beasts (and men like beasts, he joyfully reflects) will aid him. The Cat proves him wrong. Mr. Spring prepares for a showdown with the Cat as well, drawing on his violent past in the Hell of the Pacific, and his brutal training may well make him a match for the beast. Peter meanwhile falls into a love triangle with Claudia and her sister, and mopes about until one too many atrocities snap him out of his funk and he too prepares to stalk the cat - after delivering a sermon, of course! Normally Peter's annual speech is a quiet affair for Remembrance Day (wherein the village mourns its 30 young men lost in the Great War, "most of them wasted in one minute by one machine-gun at Ypres"), but facing this new evil Peter gets a little more worked up, speaking truths that must be on everyone's mind at the moment:
"For the beast is within us. We confront him daily. He walks the dark places of our minds, the thickets of our wants. Envy is the beast, that envy which makes us rend the reputations of our friends and neighbours. Sloth is the beast, which lets us wallow in our beds after gorging on dead flesh. Malice is the beast, as we lie in wait to rip apart our chosen victims. Wrath is the beast, as we frighten away what we fear may be true. Lust is the beast in the darkness of our desires. The seven times seven sins are the claws of the beast, and they scratch us into doing what we know we must do."
Before the Cat escaped, Jebb had been worrying sick over the rising threat of having to obtain some kind of permit for his private zoo or to allow (gulp) the public to view his animals. He was scared stiff by the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976, which motivated plenty of killer cats in British animal attack novels as well as sightings of real life Alien Big Cats (ABCs) after owners supposedly dumped their illicit kitties. Moving across the animal kingdom, the back page ad is for Sphere Books' paperback of the all-American Alligator, by Shelley Katz.
| Originally published in hardcover as The Surrey Cat |
Class, gash, and gore - the stuff of British horror! They call her THE CAT, and she earns a solid 3/4 stars!
Sphere Books, 1977 (original pub. 1977 as The Surrey Cat)