A Stranger City

By: Linda Grant

Narrated by: Olivia Dowd

When a dead body is found in the Thames, caught in the chains of HMS Belfast, it begins a search for a missing woman and confirms a sense that in London a person can become invisible once outside their community - and that assumes they even have a community.

A policeman, a documentary film maker and an Irish nurse named Chrissie all respond to the death of the unknown woman in their own ways.

London is a place of random meetings, shifting relationships - and some, like Chrissie intersect with many.

The filmmaker and the policeman meanwhile have safe homes with wives - or do they?

An immigrant family speaks their own language only privately; they have managed to integrate - or have they?

The wonderful Linda Grant weaves a tale around ideas of home; how London can be a place of exile or expulsion, how home can be a physical place or an idea. How all our lives intersect and how coincidence or the randomness of birth place can decide how we live and with whom.

©2019 Linda Grant