The Kindness of Strangers
We start with a man gasping on the floor as his life snuffs out and a group of strangers look on, aghast. How terribly unfair it all is, the dying man thinks.
It is an exciting opening to Emma Garman’s debut novel, The Kindness of Strangers, which is set in post-war London and draws on Agatha Christie tropes such as the obnoxious victim, red herrings, and hidden identities, but brings to the genre a smart and literary modern sensibility. After the opening scene, the story steps back so we can discover exactly why the inhabitants of a bohemian boarding house in Chelsea were so reluctant to lend a hand as a man expired on their living room floor.
We meet the cast of characters. A disparate group of people lodge at a boarding house in Chelsea, where the landlord and self-styled bohemian, Honor Wilson, runs a minor literary journal. It’s 1953, and the capital is restless and on the cusp of change. There’s Robbie, the writer who is estranged from his wife; Mina, the aspiring socialite; Saul, the refugee poet; and George, the debutante. And then, one cold and foggy night in February, Jimmy knocks on the front door.
I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns of this escapist and fun summer read even as some of the plot contrivances creaked a little and the ending didn’t land as satisfyingly as I had hoped. Garman has written a rollicking whodunnit powered by a fierce wit, richly drawn period detail and a big cast of characters that is deftly handled through multiple viewpoints. Whilst it starts off in what seems cozy territory, it soon expands into darker themes of sexual abuse, back-street abortions and the institutional discrimination that prevailed in post-war Britain.
