Billy Mouse often feels like the odd one out. As a small, Tolkien-obsessed son of a coffin maker, he has never really fit in. Then, one September morning, the first day of a new school year, things seem even more bewildering. Overnight, his neighbour has managed to regrow her perm, the 'Woodcock Drive' sign has again been snapped off in an 'amusing' place and when he arrives at school his new form room is full of older pupils and his class are back where they were the year before. When his form tutor arrives with her dress tucked in her knickers. exactly as she did twelve months earlier, Billy knows something really weird is happening. A glance outside confirms that the new astroturf pitch has somehow no longer been built and then Jess Walker walks in. She was murdered last June.

All cats are grey is a coming of age novel that will appeal to anyone who has ever felt like the underdog. Its central character Billy is immediately cast into the role of prospective hero and he realises that he has somehow been given a chance to solve the mystery of who killed Jess and to stop it happening again / at all. The problems are that a) he will have to get to know her properly to help her and he's really really rubbish at talking to girls and that b) he will have to be strong and brave rather than an undersized and mostly anonymous lad who is more used to painting hobbit figurines.The novel tracks the path Billy takes, uncovering clue after clue whilst trying to deny to himself that he's actually fallen for the enigmatic Jess. From the boy most likely to be completely forgotten by anyone he meets, he's suddenly housebreaking, spying, truanting, attacking people with artificial legs and Hello Kitty penknives and getting involved in fights. Well, getting hit a lot.As he searches for answers, Billy works out that literally everybody is now a suspect. Even himself.

(What if he is somehow enabling, somehow pushing things on rather than helping to stop them? It is far-fetched but. if the whole time-space continuum is distorted, could indeed anything this time impact upon last time or vice versa? Thinking about it too much makes his head hurt. Like watching Back to the Future 2.).And meanwhile the clock is ticking and the past / future has a nasty habit of repeating itself.