I got last way through this to find it hadn’t downloaded properly so I could not finish, I will look for this in the library and try again
Hence the 2 stars

I really like books set in this era with this atmospheric dark setting, the chilling tense vibes that come from having a serial killer lurking in the shadows.

The book did a really good job of setting the scene and I can visualise the streets and Rio’s, and the pub really well.

Generally, I enjoyed the book, I liked the dynamic between Maureen and the police detective, Mick. Felt their connection, despite being on opposite sides of the law so to speak. But in all honesty, I was expecting the book to focus more on the Ripper, rather than the other dodgy dealings of the every day residents and their drama.

I thought that the story of the young boy being killed, the grief of the family, and the investigation around this was done well. Just not sure I was that invested in all the other stuff going on.

Good vibes, just not exactly what I was hoping for in relation to the story and not the ‘thriller’ it was sold to me as.

Thank you to @netgalley and @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for my free digital copy of this for review.

3.25/5

A fictionalised version of events surround the Yorkshire Ripper in 1970s Leeds.

Being from that area and my parents growing up in those areas it made this a little close to home in parts. It accurately reflects Leeds and more importantly Leeds of that time. It was and is a real melting pot but the 70's presented their own issues regarding racism and sexism. The working girls weren't written in a derogatory way either. They were humanised which is refreshing to see.

This does not read like a debut author wrote it. It reads like an author with several books under their belt and someone who has settled into their stride. It's a great read. I really enjoyed this book and the authors writing. Bring on more from Katy Massey

I was genuinely shocked when I read that this was a debut novel, its reads like it's been written by someone with many books under their belt.

This was an excellent read, it was dark and gritty and really kept me engrossed till the very end.

It was wonderfully written, the characters and environment felt so authentic.

I can't recommend this book enough

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown Book Group for proving me with this arc

A fictionalised account of what life was like when the Yorkshire Ripper was on the loose. An engaging story focused on Maureen, a sex worker & a number of tragedies that strike her & her friends. Overall I enjoyed the story, & was really rooting for Maureen & the other women at Rio's, but found the police officer quite irritating - in particular the many, many references to his Jaguar, which didn't add anything to the story. Aside from that I enjoyed the nick.

4.5★s
Al Us Sinners is the first novel by British author, Katy Massey. When she was fifteen, Maureen was left orphaned and homeless when her mother inexplicably disappeared. Twenty years on, her massage parour, Rio’s, provides a safe space for clean girls to service their punters, something more necessary than ever with the Yorkshire Ripper at the sixth victim in his killing spree.

Back then, Constable Mick Hunniford was very green, but kind to her even if he didn’t believe there was foul play involved when Betty went missing. Now he’s a Detective Sergeant out of Millgarth Police Station in Leeds, where the Ripper Task Force is centred, and he’s after a favour; he wants Maureen to keep an ear out for any chat about the Ripper, but also, anything that will help him find whoever killed the sweet, innocent son of Bev, one of her own girls.

After twenty years, Mick sees himself as “one-third urban cop, one-third social worker and one-third priest”. But his boss, DI Leonard Waterhouse, has firm ideas: “that the world was made up of different groups of people, some of whom deserved the police service, and some of whom didn’t.

Waterhouse claimed that he was guided by his ‘gut’, but it was really just policing by personal prejudice, with a measure of expediency thrown in.” It meant that people like prostitutes and the less well-off were “usually ill-served by the law, which sees them as troublesome and undeserving.” Spending time finding the killer of a prostitute’s son doesn’t fit his boss’s criteria, so Mick has to get a bit creative.

While he follows up leads on possible suspects: school bullies, the step-father’s enemies, the birth father, Maureen tries to subtly question customers at Rio’s, something that might backfire on her if they twig to what she’s doing. She also goes further afield, on Mick’s suggestion, learning something that might be pertinent. She is distracted, however, by the arrival of Bev’s attractive brother, Dermot, Maureen’s crush as a teen.

But when another man dies, and the police seem happy to mark both cases as solved, Maureen isn’t satisfied, and keeps digging on her own. But a beautiful mixed-race woman isn’t exactly inconspicuous and “She had sailed close to the wind with her investigations and upset powerful people” having little concept of the danger stalking her…

Massey’s rendition of mid-seventies Leeds, the landscape and mindset, presented an unconventional perspective, is flawless. She gives the reader a dark and gritty tale with a gutsy female protagonist, of whom more would be welcome. This is an outstanding debut.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK.

I found this book to be a very impressive debut, very well paced and with some authentic characters. The story flowed well and there is good description of the time and location.

All Us Sinner was a very strong debut from this author and she officially got additional one fans. The story take place at 1977, when Yorkshire Ripper is still become terror for women of Leeds and Yorkshire.

The premises was intriguing with multilayer facts. The plot isnt centered around the murder only but give more messages about family, loyalty and women rights. The writing are accessible, easy to follow and perfect to capture the dynamic and 70's atmosphere. The characters are amazing strong and easy to remember.

Thank you Netgalley and Sphere Publisher from LBBG UK for providing copy of this ebook. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Expecting Publication : 7 March 2024

It’s Leeds in 1977, there’s a Ripper on the loose murdering working girls.

The story centres around Maureen who runs Rio’s, a discreet “sauna” (read brothel) in the city and her various relationships both professional and personal. Rio’s seems to be safe from the grasp of the Ripper, especially for her two best workers Bev and Anette. That is until Bev’s teenage son David is murdered and swiftly after him another member of her family.

Maureen (Mo) is drawn into the investigation by Mick, but are the deaths linked to the Ripper or is it something else?

This debut novel by Kate Massey is gripping, a dark period story of the Leeds sex worker scene and the dangers and drama they faced, racism and Mo’s determination to survive as a black woman in a tough business, dodgy relationships, gritty twists and risk taking.

While this book wouldn’t normally be my cup of tea - I’m not usually into stories relating to sex worker protagonists - I did enjoy reading it - very Val McDermidesqe in the way it alludes to the time period without being in your face, and the ending definitely made me wonder if there will be more from Mo and/or Mick to come.

Maureen used to be a street girl but now she runs Rio's, a clean, safe sauna in Leeds. Outside in the city women are living in fear of the Ripper but Mo hopes that her team are as safe as she can make them. However violence comes to visit when the young son of one of her girls is found beaten to death. Soon afterwards Mo finds herself looked up by a previous acquaintance, Mick, a detective. Suddenly Mo finds herself working to try to find the truth and whether it involves the Ripper, the IRA or just the local Leeds gangsters.
I really liked this book on a few levels levels. Firstly it's just a great story where the working girls are not just the victims but are portrayed as real people with mouths to feed. Secondly because it's set in Leeds and the Leeds of the mid-1970s, a place of industry and fear, which I remember from my childhood. Finally because it reflects Leeds as a melting pot of cultures and the inherent racism and sexism of the time is depicted with restraint. This is a debut novel and it is an impressive one.

Kate Massey draws on her own family history as the basis for her downbeat and gritty debut crime novel All Us Sinners. The book is set in Leeds, in the North of England, in the late 1970s, during the reign of terror of the killer who came to be known and The Yorkshire Ripper, All Us Sinners effectively captures the darkness of the times in which it is set.
Maureen runs Rio’s, a brothel in one of the rougher areas of Leeds. Maureen and her staff are all on alert as someone is killing prostitutes with a hammer. But the death that drives this story is not one of those, it is the killing of the son of one of Maureen’s workers, Bev. Bev’s husband Tony is a local small time drug dealer but his son was a gentle soul who was loved by everyone. Maureen wants to help and soon finds herself working for DS Mitch Hunniford, a local policeman who she has known since she was a teenager. In a milieu that distrusts the police Maureen finds herself walking a fine line but finds that she enjoys being an investigator.
All Us Sinners is an extremely downbeat crime novel. A sense of fear and danger pervades every page with the spectre of the Ripper lurking in the shadows. And all of the characters are struggling or compromised in some way. But this adds to the atmosphere that Massey successfully builds and a sense of the time and place.
The character of Maureen is a fascinating one and, as mentioned, based on Massey’s own family history. Maureen runs a successful, necessary and in some ways respected business, but one that is frowned upon when society requires it. But she also wants more from life and sees in the work she does for Hunniford a chance to seize that. At the same time she continues to deal with the repressed trauma of the disappearance of her mother when she was in her teens.
All Us Sinners is an interesting debut in which the solution of the mystery is not as a interesting as the way Massey gets there and the society that she exposes along the way. Massey ends with a potential promise of more from Maureen and her world particularly with the Ripper still at large. But it is a dark time and a dark world and one which some readers may decide is best left in the past.

This novel was a great read, with strong characters and a plot line, with a historical backdrop the ensnares the senses. The trip into the dark realm of a world that rarely has light shined on it, really is engaging. Recommend this debut novel to everyone you know!

I was excited to read this and overall it was a good read and had some good twists and turns and was written well. However, I was a little put off by the fact that more time and attention was spent on characters that I felt weren't what the story should have been about. Or what I thought it was meant to be about. At the very beginning you learn more about the boy who died than you do the people mourning him and his mother and her colleagues who I thought are meant to be the centre of the story...or perhaps that's where it was somewhat confusing....It was a little disappointing that way as I thought it would have been far more interesting for it to be centred around the prostitutes and how they lived in the time of the ripper, but otherwise overall not a bad read.

Set in Leeds in 1977 amidst the hunt for the serial killer known as ‘The Ripper’, the streets are a dangerous place for women. Maureen runs Rio’s, a discreet brothel in the city where her workers can feel safe. When David, the son of one of her workers, is beaten to death, Maureen sets out to find who was responsible, facing up to her own fears and some of her old enemies along the way.

The story is told from two points of view, Maureen and DC Mick Hunniford, the police officer who is investigating David’s death. The pair have history and through their narratives we see the guarded and conflicting nature of their relationship.

The character of DC Mick Hunniford gives the reader a glimpse into life as a police officer during one of the largest manhunts in UK history and the struggles of investigating a crime in a community consumed by ‘ The Ripper’. It describes a police force under immense pressure but whose own prejudices are preventing them for making any headway and are alienating the people who they should be protecting.

For me the highlight of the story is Maureen, Katy Massey has created a character who is strong but tender, a character who tries to be heard against a society who believes she doesn’t deserve a voice. Through Maureen we experience the fear that women lived through during this time and how they were so often disregarded due to their gender, class or race. Katy Massey shows us life from their perspective and the bonds that exist between them.

It’s dark, gritty and authentic and I recommend it for anyone looking for an original take on crime fiction.

Katy Massey’s book is set in Leeds during the horrible period that was Peter Sutcliffe’s killing ground/ It is not a book about the so-called ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ but those events provide a chilling background to what is happening in the town.

Amid the scare money is scarce and there are fewer people on the streets. Maureen runs the Rio sauna/massage parlour which is fooling no-one, but at least her women are safer indoors than on the streets. Her two best workers, Bev and Annette know just how to treat their clients and there’s seldom any trouble. And at least the police have better things to do now than giving them trouble.

Maureen is mixed race at a time when racism is all too pervasive and she has had a hard upbringing. Her mother left her at an early age and her stepfather never cared about her at all and left her homeless early on. Her half-sister Pam despises and looks down on her. But she’s made something of herself, even if it is running a brothel and she treats her workers as well as she can.

Then Bev’s son David is murdered, his body left behind a local public house and none of them can believe it. A boy who loved animals and being outdoors, it’s hard to believe anyone would be so cruel to a young lad. Bev is destroyed and suspicion falls on her man, Tony – Maureen knows he beats Bev and is into all kinds of dodgy stuff.

Maureen knows DS Mick Hunniford and she’s really not sure he has her best interests at heart. But she really wants David’s murderer found and she needs him to focus on that case and not be drawn into the wider Ripper case and forget about David, so she does a deal with him and agrees to do some digging for him. Maureen also has a need for information about her own life and she sees Hunniford as a way to get that. He’s an odd character; he seems straight as a die but Maureen still isn’t sure she can trust him.

Soon she finds herself in the sordid world of drugs, hard crime and local gangsters, something she’s not really prepared for. Even the return of good looking Dermot, Bev’s brother, doesn’t quite allay her mistrust of men.

This novel shines because it doesn’t glorify the women who work in the brothels or on the streets. These are not ‘tarts with heart’, rather they are well drawn characters making a living in a tough economy in one of the few ways open to them.

The portrayal of Leeds in the 70’s has some nice local detail, especially around the music scene for young people in the region. There’s an authenticity to the brothel, even down to Maureen complaining about the number of towels she has to launder, and the streets are full of an atmosphere of poverty, cold and damp with people who walk with their heads down.

Verdict: I’d have liked a little more information about the character of DS Mick Hunniford, but this is clearly designed to be the first book in a series, so I look forward to learning more in subsequent books. Overall, a good start to a new series with lots of themes ripe for following up.

All us sinners promised a gritty murder mystery based in Leeds with references to the ripper.; and this is exactly what it produced.
However, at times I found it hard work and I struggled to engage with the characters .
For me, it did not live up to my expectations. However, I would like to read other work by this author as in fairness I did rush’ through the book.

Set in the late 70s, during the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, we meet Maureen who runs a highly successful brothel in Leeds. She is a good boss to all her girls, especially her top two, Bev and Anette. Her premises is a safe place for them to ply their trade, rather than the streets where fear is rife. But bad things can always sneak in the door and this happens to Bev when her son is found beaten to death. He's a good boy, so it beggars belief why this has been done to him. If it were his wastrel father then that could be explained but not David. Luckily DS Mick Hunniford is on the case. I say luckily, but given Maureen's past with him, maybe that's not quite accurate...
This book initially reminded me of the TV program Ripper Street, with the well run brothel, the cop, and the Ripper backstory... But that's where the similarity ends. This book is a whole world different to that once it all gets going. It really took me back to the late 70 and, although living in the South, I don't think anyone wasn't touched by what was happening in the North. The time period felt wholly genuine and I managed to fully immerse myself therein. You do have to remember though that attitudes were different then and the author pulls no punches with many "isms".
I really took to Maureen from the off. She has broken ranks with what she is "supposed" to be and has carved out a good life for herself and the others she employs. Yes, she's not perfect but she always does the best she thinks she can. She doesn't shy away from the darker side of life which helps with her endeavours to find out what happened to David. Trust is an issue for her, but I will leave you to discover the whys and wherefores for yourself.
All in all this is a hard hitting gritty crime book which grabbed me from the off and held my attention throughout. So much so that I went to check out the author's back catalogue and, to my astonishment, discovered that this is her debut book. Hats off for that, now I really can't wait to see what she serves up for next time. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

What an impressive debut from the author. Set in Leeds in 1997, at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, this is very well plotted. The characterisation is authentic, I loved Mo, and although the book is about a serial killer of women, it tends to focus more on the murder of a 15 year old boy. It was lacking a bit of suspense but was dark and I liked the setting. Overall, a good read which I would recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

It's 1977 in Leeds and mention of the "new ripper" has prostitutes in fear, but of course they still work the streets because its how they earn their money. Maureen, a tough but kind hearted former prostitute runs Rio's, a clean brothel, she looks after her girls and they feel safe working there. Bev and Anette are her best girls, but when Bev's gentle son David is murdered they realise the devil is close to them inside as well as outside.
All us sinners is a dark, gritty crime novel by Katy Massey, its her debut novel but you certainly wouldn't think so. The writing is on point and characterisation, conversations and feelings are true to the 1970's.
Although there are references to The Yorkshire Ripper the book isn't centered on his crimes, it creates an atmosphere of fear and terror but also underlying a sense of friendship and loyalties, a time when everyone looked out for each other.
I'm grateful to Netgalley and Little Brown Bookgroup for the opportunity to read this advanced copy with no to obligation to review

3.5 stars rounded up.

Leeds, 1977. A chill lies over the sex workers as they are being killed by a serial killer they are calling the"Ripper," the streets creeping with fear. Tough, sharp, but tender, Maureen runs Rio's, a clean, discreet brothel in the city. She's a good boss who takes care of her workers - especially her best girls, Bev and Annette. The Ripper may be terrifying the girls who work the streets, but at Rio's the girls seem safer. But when Bev's sweet-natured son is found beaten to death, a figure from Maureen's past, DS Mick Hunniford, shows up at her door. Does his arrival herald danger or salvation? And who can Maureen really trust?

This story focuses around Maureen, who runs a brothel in Leeds. It's also set against the backdrop of the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper. There are lots of strong female characters in this book. It's quite a dark and gritty read, but there wasn't really any suspense to the story. I didn't know who I could trust. This is an enjoyable debut story.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #LittleBrownBookGroup and the author #KatyMassey for my ARC of #AllUsSinners in exchange for an honest review.