In the sweltering summer of 1900 young wharf labourer Patrick O’Reilly is down on his luck in the slums of Sydney and homesick for Tralee. When a deadly outbreak of plague descends on the city O’Reilly’s daydreaming mind is miles away – in the golden hair and kindly confident air of a girl called Rosie Hughes.

Just as he’s wondering why any girl would want a no-hoper like him opportunity knocks with the offer of a job as a rat catcher working for the city’s Plague Department containing the spread of disease. But the job will bring him a lot more than a pay rise and a swift education on traps and poisons.

In the Public Lending Library on the top floor of the Queen Victoria Building above the bustling centre of Sydney he comes face-to-face with a legendary rat called Old Scratch who will change the way he understands himself and the world forever.

Drawn from Kim Kelly’s own trove of Irish-Australian family lore The Rat Catcher is a mischievous fast-paced fable told with her trademark compassion a sharp eye on the epic in the ordinary and an irrepressible love for life in all its marvellous forms.