Wilson's second thriller set in austerity London begins awkwardly, with too many similar-seeming characters introduced too quickly, but untangles itself in time for the first death. Ballet critic Freddie Buckingham had just left a party when he was shot walking across Hampstead Heath. Was he killed by a lover? It seems not; and he had more enemies than expected, including a sinister Mosleyite art teacher obsessed with a ballerina he believes Buckingham "destroyed". Wilson loves people with something - perhaps everything - to hide, and the losers here are those who used the war to reinvent themselves and now risk an embarrassing unmasking. Especially good on atmosphere, she evokes louche, bohemian NW3 with skill and relish, emphasising what an alien world it would have seemed in 1947, even to unshockable policemen.