A dead body found in the Thames is the starting point for this thoughtful and perceptive novel about identity, community, dislocation, immigration and the idea of home and belonging.

A Stranger City is a novel about London, about the people there and how they find it a home or otherwise. A Stranger City is centred on the imagined enclave of Wall Park, below the North Circular, though readers familiar with Bowes Park, Myddleton Road and the New River will recognise the neighbourhood.

The plot lines are quite a few, and so distinct but each and everyone of them is so fascinating and the author manages to connect them, interlaced them in a credible way that really worked for me. A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984. Next we meet a producer of television documentaries; he and the policeman discuss the idea of making a programme about the woman.

A documentary film-maker who ‘links’ stories by his film about the disappeared, the missing, in London. To Grant's credit, she saved the situation a bit in the end with a relative straightforward recitation of what happened to each character, and I did appreciate that . Alan, the film director and his wife Persian wife Francesca are also house hunting in a suburban enclave that is still populated by the older generation of migrants and working class from World War II times. Already, travelling around continental Europe, I have been interrogated by a few well-meaning German and even Australian couples I encountered, asking me what the hell is actually happening with Brexit. A big feature of it is London, the Thames, suburbs, transport, night life, daily work, changing seasons, landmarks, celebrations, horrors, as experienced by the characters.

In addition, there were some pretty surreal moments that require the reader to puzzle out what has actually happened and more importantly why.