Catherine McCullagh
Paperback 2021
It’s July 1943 and the world has been at war for almost four long years. One morning, young widow Emmy Penry-Jones discovers two men washed up on the beach below her house on the west coast of Cornwall. Emmy is used to rescuing washed-up sailors, the deadly Battle of the Atlantic exacting a heavy toll on shipping. But these men are not like the shipwrecked sailors she has rescued before and Emmy is soon drawn into a web of intrigue that will test her ingenuity and her patriotism. Rocked by accusations of war crimes against a man she knows to be innocent, Emmy launches a bid to defend him, all too aware that the accusers could turn on her. But the trial marks a turning point and Emmy is drawn further into a deadly cycle of post-war retribution from which only one man can save her.
Catherine McCullagh trained as a history and language teacher, spent twenty years in the Australian Army then left to establish herself as a freelance editor. Fifteen years later, inspired by the extraordinary stories that surrounded her, she embarked on a new career, this time as a writer. She has published three non-fiction works, Willingly into the Fray, War Child and Unconquered. Her first historical novel, Dancing with Deception, was followed by Secrets and Showgirls and her latest work, Love and Retribution. Catherine lives in Canberra, Australia, and loves bushwalking, reading and travelling to exotic locations.