Based on the true story of the 43 Group, A Monster in the Ash combines the East End resistance of Jo Bloom’s Ridley Road with the emotion of Kristin Hannah’s The Women and the suspense of Lara Prescott’s The Secrets We Kept.
Sadie Shaposnick spent the war running a black-market racket out of her husband Leon’s East End butcher shop. Now Leon has returned from a German POW camp, traumatised and dismayed to find Fascism rising once again, only ten years after Cable Street. With the authorities turning a blind eye, Leon joins a vigilante gang formed by Simka Reubens, a charismatic former street-fighter with ties to Sadie’s late mother Rosy Gold—a local anti-fascist icon who died fighting Franco in Spain. At first, Sadie resists being drawn into the gang, but as the violence escalates she realises that fighting back is the only way to protect her neighbours and hopefully repair her faltering marriage.
Meanwhile, Sadie’s widowed sister Karla has to raise her daughters alone in her grief-stricken in-laws’ mansion. When her late husband’s younger brother Rafi returns from fighting with armed partisans in Mandatory Palestine, Karla must decide how far she’ll go to feel alive again. But when Rafi crosses paths with Sadie, he is drawn into the struggle as well, sending the gang into even greater peril.
With Oswald Mosley gaining power, the only option is resistance, even if it means facing the ghosts of the past while fighting the monsters that are rising from the ashes of the war.
My thoughts: This period of time after the Second World War isn’t one I know much about and having now read this book, I think that’s a shame. My family (on both sides) has roots in the East End of London and I grew up and live in North West London where many of my neighbours are Jewish. Yet I had never heard of the 43 Group, which was dedicated to fighting Oswald Mosley and his disgusting fascists. Even after being imprisoned, he didn’t just go away.
The actions that Sadie, Leon and their friends take are dangerous and come with the threat of prison and worse (Britain still had the death penalty at this point) if they weren’t careful to never fully cross the line. I think Daniel’s heartbreaking betrayal was the worst bit, but they let him down first.
Reading this feels quite timely, in a rather unpleasant way, as antisemitic attacks seem to be on the increase again. This was what the characters, and their real life counterparts, were so determined to put a stop to.
The book isn’t an easy read, the suffering and tragedies of Sadie and her friends, the death of her father, Karla’s husband dying in the war, all of these things are very real, even if the people are fictional.
It’s a powerful book, sad and moving. I really wanted happier endings for Sadie and her sister-in-law Sorel.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
