Stella Duffy's excellent new novel marks a departure from her previous plot driven stories, as she dips into the lives of several residents of a South London community. The central story is about Robert, the dry cleaner who is set to retire and who is privy to the many secrets of his customers, and young east Londoner Akeel, who will take on his business. Whilst these two complete a lengthy handover lives are entwined, lessons learnt and secrets revealed.

Under his railway arch in Loughborough Junction, South London, Robert Sutton is taking leave of a lifetime of hard work. His dry-cleaning shop lies at the heart of a lively community, a fixed point in a changing world. And, as he explains to his successor, young East Londoner Akeel, it is also the resting place for the contents of his customers' pockets - and for their secrets and lies.

As he helps Akeel to make a new life out of his old one, Robert also hands on all he knows of his world: the dirty dip of the Thames; the parks, rare green oases in a desert of high-rises and decaying mansion blocks; and the varied lives that converge at the junction. Humming with life, packed tight with detail, The Room of Lost Things is a hymn of love to a great and overflowing city, and a profoundly human story that holds us in its grip from the first sentence until the last.

Hardback

320 pages