The Widow by Fiona Barton

 

Review Date: 10 October 2015

Author: Fiona Barton

Release Date: 14 January 2016

Publishers: Bantam Press (Transworld Publishers).

ISBN –10: 0593076214

ISBN – 13: 0593076217

416pp 

Available in Hardback, Paperback, Kindle and audio

 

The Last Word Review

Thought provoking psychological thriller, what does go on behind closed doors

One of the most anticipated thrillers to be published in January 2016. Fiona Barton has written the ultimate thriller in The Widow that asks the question what really does go on behind closed doors.

This is a novel as told through the perspectives of the leading characters, and you get to know them very well and some are not quite as they make out.

Bella a two year old girl has been abducted from her garden and the main suspect is Glen Taylor a delivery driver. The police arrive one day to question Glen about his whereabouts on the day Bella disappeared so the story begins. Well not quite, there much more to this psychological thriller than you think. Glen seemed to have it all a great job at the local bank except how did he lose his job and how he explained it to his wife Jean, slowly but surely the facts all start to be uncovered. Glen is not who Jean really thinks he is, in fact the long suffering wife does not know her husband all that well.

The book opens four years after Bella disappeared and a lot has taken place in that time, now Glen has been killed in an accident and Jean has decided to bring the past out into the open. This is a story that flits between the past and the present in short chapters that I found really captivating and dares you to put the book down. I could not as it is that good you just wanted to know more about Glen and why is Jean so supportive of the monster that is her husband.

Normally in a review I will give an outline of the storyline in more detail, but as this is being published in January 2016 and is destined to be a best seller, this time around I am not going to delve to deeply into the story as that will spoil it.

The Widow is superbly written and so many twists and turns and really makes you thinks about loyalty in situations like this. I utterly loathed Glen but with Jean I found myself asking ‘why’ many times and this is a very believable storyline as you can imagine there are many ‘Jeans’ out there in a similar situation.

As I write this review The Widow has been sold to over 28 countries around the world and that is destined to increase and in recent days has been ‘optioned’ for television. You will be hearing a lot more about Fiona Barton and her debut novel through the coming months.

Some will tell you that The Widow will be the new Girl on the Train or Gone Girl I am in the opinion to say that it deserves to stand up by itself and it will and the success and accolades that will surely follow. It is no surprise to learn that Fiona Barton is an award winning reporter so she knew exactly what she was writing about when writing The Widow as she covered many murder cases. What makes women like Jean Taylor stay loyal that is one of the leading questions that comes out of this outstanding crime thriller.

Make a date for 14 January 2016 and prepare to cancel a weekend as turn the first page of Fiona Barton’s The Widow.

Thank you to Ben Willis and Transworld Books for an Advanced Review Copy.

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Meet the Author

Fiona Barton

Fiona Barton trains and works with journalists all over the world. Previously, she was a senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where she won Reporter of the Year at the British Press Awards. The Widow is her first novel. Born in Cambridge, she currently lives in south-west France.