I have to say I enjoyed the first half of the novel more than the second, which seemed to stray off-course with too many diversions and a rather jarring conclusion. 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. London is the city of strangers in the title of this novel which must be one of the first set in the immediate time of pre and post Brexit referendum.

As for the projections into the future, I too often wonder if we're living in the Garden of the Fitzi Continis and think Grant stitched that book into the fabric of her tale to make us think about signs we might be missing. for me - couldn’t make up my mind about it as at times I found it confusing and disjointed- but perhaps that was the point.Not yet well known in Australia, it’s a book about life in modern UK, people living post Brexit, that’s what interested me. Many of the subplots touch upon the theme of immigration today and how immigrants are (or are not) absorbed into London.

At a time when dangerously inert notions of national identity are on the rise once more, Grant reminds us that humanity is a migrant species: we are all strangers. That’s appropriate for such a contemporary novel reflecting the unknowable outcome of a country in flux. And Dickens is one of the first modernists,” she adds, citing Bleak House, with its unreliable narration, different points of view, different tenses, capturing her sense of the disconnection of London, “operating on coincidence. The newly retired cop Pete knows that police work “isn’t all clues and puzzles like you read in books or see on the telly”. A wonderful exploration of what it means to be anonymous and alone in a city thronging with people, A Stranger City at once preserves the timeless Britishism of modern London whilst celebrating its cosmopolitan and multicultural nature.Then we find migrants from the Commonwealth and semi-recent conflict zones - Iran after the fall of the Shah. And despite its contemporary relevance, the novel avoids becoming a "state of the nation" tract - it's far too emotionally intelligent for that.

Each character within the text is beautifully drawn, and each comes from a different community, and sometimes no community, but they intersect, relate and move on. It’s the type of book that will be nominated for some obscure literary prize hailed as an insight to modern London. London is a place of random meetings, shifting relationships – and some, like Chrissie intersect with many.Linda Grant's literary novel turns a mysterious death into a post Brexit rumination on the state of the nation and a celebration of London's cultural diversity. Here again she has incorporated social issues through the interlinked lives of her characters and produced a very readable novel.

At any rate, I don't mind doing some of the work as a reader, but I felt the balance was tipped away from my favor and not in a good way.It’s a frightening scenario that while I have not experienced it personally certainly have seen in the media, both conventional and social. Grant is superb on London life, which is at once atomised and seen as a web of unlikely connections. It is too difficult to hold so many characters in the mind all at once, so each time a character re-appears, he or she has to be re-learned. Much as I admire, enjoy, and always look forward to Linda Grant’s fiction, A Stranger City will require a rereading before I can determine just how I feel about it. A Romanian holds the key to the missing woman but is too afraid of the police and deportation to assist.