UNUSUALLY, Bishop Auckland author Wendy Robertson has set her latest novel not in the North-East but in a corner of north London.

It's a London that teems with fascinating characters of all nationalities, classes and backgrounds, a metropolitan, cosmopolitan mix. There is, of course, a northern connection.

Into this, to view it all with an outsider's eye, comes Sophia, a Geordie social worker, come south to forget her old life, start anew and train as a journalist.

On an exercise in finding a story, she finds instead a tiny house, painted lavender and moves in.

But despite its apparent doll's house appeal, there's an air of menace to the house - and to the novel. The house has secrets, Sophia herself has a past she's trying to escape from. Then there are the neighbours - elderly Julia, still in hotpants and kinky boots, trapped in 1969 and talking to her cat. Posh Doreen has come down in the world and knits for a living. Bobbi is a fearsomely bright ten-year-old. But what does her father do? More importantly, where is he? And who are the mysterious, threatening callers at the house?

The answer lies in the past, in the London of the 1960s - not all Mary Quant and Carnaby Street, but the seedy world of the gangsters like the Krays with their pseudo sophistication, celebrity hangerson and their ruthless brutality. The past is always part of our present, casting long shadows.

You can always rely on Wendy Robertson for brilliantly created characters.

Even when we're still not quite sure if they're mad, bad or dangerous to know, we are intrigued by them.

Gradually, this strange bunch of neighbours become friends and unwittingly help each other cope with the present and lift the weight of the past, though in very different ways. Nothing is quite what it seems and to the very end there are still some surprising and very satisfactory twists and turns.

Another accomplished achievement.

From the North-East to North London, Wendy Robertson has travelled very successfully.