Which is ironic, since so many of them came to London precisely to enjoy a broader, global perspective and experience culture and sophistication. London is a place of random meetings, shifting relationships - and some, like Chrissie intersect with many. The writing is excellent, and the wonderfully disparate characters recognisable, and so well rounded as to become extremely real.

A Stranger City is a lush love letter to London that asks questions about what cost Brexit will have on [Grant's] adopted city and its diverse inhabitants .London is inhabited by a multi-cultural, diverse society; a society that flaunts its multi-racial, multi-ethnic status; perhaps even its willingness to embrace diversity, difference.

Perhaps it's an intentional bit of meta-commentary on making connections in London that we only get to know the main characters as one-dimensional stereotypes. He meets a film maker who makes a documentary about the body and still no one comes forward to identify her.Published in 2019, A Stranger City documents the strange, uncomfortable awareness about ourselves which has been our lot since the Brexit vote. It seemed it had an interesting array of characters with the action, initially, zeroing in on those with a link to an unidentified body fished out of the Thames.