Unconvincing Café Crime: The Secrets of Strangers

The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman

Allen & Unwin

Pp. 334

Published in 2020, this fast-paced action novel about five strangers held captive by a gunman in a London café instantly recalls the Lindt Café siege in December 2014, when a lone gunman held hostage ten customers and eight employees of a chocolate café in Martin Place, Sydney, Australia. There have doubtless been many events such as this in London, but the novel doesn’t feel as though it is set in that city at all – there are no landmarks or sense of place, the people are caricatures rather than characters, and there is a reference to playing soccer, betraying the fact that the author has lived in New Zealand for the past twenty years.

The novel is written in the present tense and structured in short chapters with different third-person-omniscient perspectives to make it feel immediate and resemble a TV drama or a play. Neil is an erstwhile teacher, now homeless due to a gambling addiction, Abi is a defence lawyer, Mutesi is a Carer at an aged care facility, Sam is the gunman who has shot Robert, the café owner, and Eliza is the police negotiator.

The most interesting and believable of these characters is Eliza, who is co-ordinating between the gunman on the phone and those directing the police operation on the ground. Tension abounds when they want to enter the building although she cautions against it. Her communication with Sam must be rational and calm as she tries to establish a rapport and get to the crux of the matter.

Everyone has the capacity for both good and evil and Sam is plagued by memories of a two-faced puppet, an obvious metaphor for his relationship with his manipulative step-father. The owner of the café, Robert, whom everyone thought was a good guy, is actually a snake and uses coercive control on his partners. He’s a narcissist and a sociopath, and few people can see through him as he gaslights women (including Sam’s mother) and convinces them they have gaping holes in their memory and forget whole conversations.

In a very conventional outlook, we are guided to believe that children are the future and the reason for living. Mutesi is only afraid for her grandson; Abi is undergoing IVF in a desperate attempt to conceive which has taken over her life and that of her partner, as if she is nothing without offspring.

The situation is extremely unrealistic, with sympathetic cups of tea; coherent stories told and a neat tying-up of ends. In a cosy conclusion it provides a satisfying story (no innocent bystanders are shot) and we are almost directed (the words is used advisedly) to feel sympathy for Sam because of the incidents in his past. Although it is dangerous to assign labels if one is not a clinical psychiatrist, it may be that Sam is on the spectrum and possibly lives with ADHD. He has suicidal thoughts and ideation, and is taking Ritalin to help focus his attention. And yet he shot someone, held up others at gunpoint, and clearly has terrifying anger issues. 

We are told, “People survive. Human beings go on. They have a capacity for love and a capacity for evil, but they go on.” It doesn’t ring true that contemporary Londoners would be that equable or forgiving, and the novel can’t decide between being a gritty police procedural and a charming endorsement of humanity.