The Widow by Fiona Barton Published by NAL, Penguin Audio on February 16th 2016
Genres: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Pages: 336
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 1101990260
ASIN: B00Z8VT8AE
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For fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, an electrifying thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife.
When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen... But that woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore. There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment. Now there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage. The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…
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I can’t remember ever having listened to (or read) a book about which I had an epiphany within the first fifteen minutes and instantly glimpsed what the ending was going to be! Far from being a spoiler, this epiphany made it exciting for me to listen through the book as it moved toward what I perceived as inevitable. The thrill for me lay in peeping around every corner as I waited for a figurative “Gotcha!” from the author and the revelation of a totally different outcome from the one in my epiphany. That didn’t happen. . .though, for me, it didn’t take away either the suspense or the pleasure of being right! The Widow, by veteran journalist Fiona Barton, is a debut novel which reflects the writer’s years of experience. This is no awkward first attempt, but a well-written, tightly plotted, and gripping story of two lives gone terribly awry. Jean and Glen Taylor begin their marriage with such joy and hope. They seem like such a nice, ordinary pair; people you might meet on the street and find unremarkable. However, with every disquieting detail about this couple, the author paints a portrait of lives slowly disintegrating and ultimately giving way to madness.
This is the first review I’ve done of a book with multiple narrators. It’s not unusual to have a couple of narrators for stories written in first person POV with a male and a female voice. That just makes perfect sense. Even though the POV of The Widow is not first person, it also makes perfect sense, and is very effective, to have a different voice for each character since each chapter is written from a particular character’s viewpoint. The story is told from five perspectives: Jean (Hannah Curtis) and Glen (Steve West) each have parts along with Kate Waters, a reporter (Mandy Williams), Bob Sparkes, a detective, (Nicholas Guy Smith)and Dawn Elliot, a mother whose child has been abducted (Jayne Entwistle). This is a cast of narrators, both accomplished and experienced, who give an outstanding, even chilling at times, interpretation of Fiona Barton’s work. You might find the linked interviews with Hannah Curtis, Jayne Entwistle, and Steve West fascinating looks at the work of narrators.
I recommend this audiobook to listeners who like police procedurals and psychological thrillers. With her writing ability and experience, I am definitely looking forward to more from Fiona Barton.
About Fiona Barton
My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years. I have been a journalist – senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.
But through it all, a story was cooking in my head.
The worm of this book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew – or allowed themselves to know.
It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.
Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow is available now in the UK, and around the world in the coming months.
However, the sudden silence of my characters feels like a reproach and I am currently working on a second book.
My husband and I are living the good life in south-west France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Sparky, crowing.
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