Strangers in Time by David Baldacci Book Summary

Strangers in Time opens in the rubble-strewn landscape of London, midway through 1944. We meet Charlie Matters, a boy on the cusp of fourteen, an orphan whose young life has been brutally shaped by the Blitz. His parents are gone, and he lives with his Gran in the impoverished East End, navigating a world of blackouts, rations, and the constant threat of German bombs. Survival for Charlie often means petty theft, a path he treads with a reluctant heart but a pragmatic mind. His immediate goal? A decent pair of shoes. This quest leads him one night to attempt a burglary at St. Saviour’s School, a plan that goes awry when he can’t pick a second lock.

Dejected, Charlie stumbles upon The Book Keep, a seemingly quiet shop run by Oliver. In a moment of desperation, Charlie steals some biscuits, a blank book, and money from the till, only to be seen by Oliver. The next day, Oliver, a lanky, bespectacled man, appears at Charlie’s Bethnal Green flat, having found Charlie’s name-and-address tag left behind in the shop. He doesn’t report Charlie; he simply returns the tag. This act of unexpected kindness prompts a conflicted Charlie to return the stolen money. Oliver, in turn, gives Charlie the blank book, suggesting he might write his thoughts in it. This encounter with Oliver, a man of quiet sorrow and hidden depths, sets a new course for Charlie.

Around the same time, Molly Wakefield returns to a London she hasn’t seen since 1939. Evacuated to the countryside under Operation Pied Piper, she’s now nearly sixteen and has spent the war years with the Coopers in Leiston, Suffolk, where she gained significant, if informal, medical experience helping at a local hospital treating wounded soldiers. Her homecoming, however, is anything but joyful. Her father is absent, her mother is supposedly unwell and also not present. Mrs. Pride, her old nanny, is evasive. Molly, determined and resourceful, begins to piece together a troubling reality. Her mother, Eloise, is in a sanatorium in Cornwall, and her father, Herbert, has vanished. What really happened to them?

Molly’s path crosses Charlie’s when she seeks out The Book Keep, having heard Charlie mention its owner, Ignatius Oliver. Oliver gives her Charlie’s address. She finds Charlie, tends to a cut on his hand, and they share a picnic. It’s during this outing that they see a newspaper headline about a tragic accident: a constable and a boy killed by a lorry. Charlie is visibly shaken.

The narrative then reveals the terrible events leading to this: Gran’s wages are cut, and they face eviction. Charlie, desperate, considers asking Molly for money. He’s then confronted by his old mates, the aggressive Lonzo Rossi and the quieter Eddie Gray. Lonzo, aware of Charlie’s earlier theft from Oliver, attempts to force Charlie to rob The Book Keep again, threatening his Gran. Charlie reluctantly agrees, hoping to control the situation. The break-in goes disastrously wrong; they are spotted by a constable. While fleeing, Eddie and the pursuing constable are hit and killed by a lorry. Lonzo, blaming Charlie, flees, and Charlie is left consumed by guilt and the fear of being hanged.

Charlie, now truly alone after Gran’s sudden death (which Molly helps him arrange the funeral for), finds work as a telegram messenger using Oliver’s first name as an alias. He becomes a “Hermes” of wartime London, delivering news, sometimes joyous, often tragic. Molly, meanwhile, secures a position as a nurse auxiliary at the Covent Garden Medical Clinic, lying about a letter of consent from her “father.”

Oliver, it turns out, is more than just a grieving widower and an air warden. He has a past with MI5, entangled with the Double-Cross system during the war. His late wife, Imogen, the original proprietress of The Book Keep, had been a brilliant woman who, disillusioned by the war’s destruction (particularly the bombing of Paternoster Row, London’s book district), initially spied for the Germans. Consumed by guilt after Oliver was nearly killed in a bombing, she confessed to him and then agreed to become a double agent for Britain, working with Major Scott Bryant, an old university friend of Oliver’s. 

The mysterious Cedric Axmann, a German agent, is Oliver’s contact, and the hollowed-out George Sand books are used to pass intelligence – or rather, misinformation. Imogen, unable to live with her actions, had later taken her own life at the Beneficial Institute in Cornwall, the same place Molly’s mother is a patient. This connection deeply disturbs Oliver when he learns of it from Dr. Stephens.

The lives of Charlie, Molly, and Oliver become increasingly intertwined. Molly learns the horrifying truth about her mother’s assault in a bomb shelter by British soldiers and her father’s subsequent vigilante justice, murdering the men responsible before disappearing. Major Bryant reveals this to Molly, explaining her father is now a fugitive. He also confirms her father was indeed an operative for British intelligence.

The climax arrives with a devastating V-2 rocket attack on London. Oliver, on his air warden rounds, is killed while trying to reach Charlie and Molly, who are sheltering in a warehouse basement. Before his death, in a staged confrontation to deceive Cedric Axmann (who believes Oliver is a loyal German spy), Oliver “dies” from a blank gunshot, allowing Cedric to escape with false intelligence designed by Major Bryant to cripple a German offensive. Oliver’s real death in the V-2 attack is a tragic, unforeseen blow.

In the aftermath, Oliver leaves The Book Keep and a modest life insurance policy to Charlie and Molly in equal shares. Major Bryant ensures Lonzo Rossi (who had been brutally beaten by DI Willoughby after being arrested trying to join the army, and later dies from his injuries at Molly’s clinic) and Charlie are cleared of any serious charges related to the constable’s death.

The story concludes decades later. Molly is a successful psychiatrist in London, having finished Imogen’s manuscript and published it under both their names. Charlie, after traveling the world and filling his own journals, owns a ranch in Australia with his wife and children. They remain the closest of friends, a family forged in the crucible of war and loss, forever bound by their shared experiences and the memory of Ignatius Oliver, the stranger in time who brought them together.