The Suspect by Fiona Barton

The Suspect. Fiona Barton. Penguin Publishing Group..  January 2019. $26.00; hb, 416 pp.; ISBN: 9781101990513.

One of the worst nightmares for parents would be the disappearance or death of a child. One probably can’t imagine such a scene.  In many ways, parents are slightly out of touch once teens become older and exert some independence. So when Alex and a new friend Rosie go to Bangkok, Thailand, their parents are happy that they are supposedly having a great time.  The few texts they send to their parents and other friends seem to send the same message, the trip of a lifetime, which is exactly what it’s not!

At the same time, Kate Waters and her husband have fallen out of touch with their son, Jake.  He is also in Bangkok but no one knows what he’s doing there.  He was supposed to be continuing his education but that’s far from reality.  The story also concerns a young man named Jamie, a kind of obsessive guy who is mildly irritating to his crowd of friends and a Thai landlady called Mamma. 

When Alex and Rosie stop sending messages and haven’t been heard from in a little over week, the parents and friends become very concerned.  Days later, the nightmare scenario rears its head; the girls are dead.  Weeks later, news hits that they didn’t die in a fire but had actually died before they were found in the remains of a fire.  This then is the mystery that fills these page-turning scenes of the investigation that follows.  It also turns out that Jake Waters was a friend of the two girls and might have started the fired hostel where the girls were found.  Drugs, sex, and a fairly wild life seem to consume most of the tourists in Bangkok and police are quick to close cases rather than investigate further. Alex fails to follow her better instincts before it is too late.

Now the parents are involved and that is tragic, high drama.  Kate Water cannot stop being a journalist and begins her own search regarding her own son.  While some of the parts are repetitive and a bit lengthy, the mystery’s solution is both unpredictable and wild beyond anyone’s imagination.  It’s a story of innocence gone awry, parents who are quite disconnected from reality, dysfunctional families and individuals who seem beyond redemption, and a question of who is innocent or guilty.   It’s an exciting, sad and thrilling roller-coaster read!  Nice job, Fiona Barton – good read!

The Child: A Novel by Fiona Barton

The Child: A Novel. Fiona Barton. Berkley. June 2017. 384 pp.  ISBN#: 9781101990483.

Kate Waters decides to diversify from her boring journalistic ventures into something she can sink her teeth into.  During excavation of a building site, the skeleton of an infant of indeterminate age is found.  It’s a backstory of no particular attention due to the fact that the newspapers are paying more attention to the shenanigans around the upcoming Olympics in London, England. For some unexplained reason, however, Kate sticks to the story and begins to explore the neighborhood around where the child was found!

This story is told from four different points of view: Kate’s version as already described; a woman named Angela whose infant daughter was stolen from her hospital room when she went into the bathroom to take a shower; a woman named Emma whose dark secret has left her in a severe depression with anxiety that she finds impossible to handle even with medication; and Emma’s mother Jude, a self-centered woman whose lack of connection with her daughter leaves the reader thinking and feeling there’s more than meets the eye here. 

The story moves rather slowly in the middle of the book but then accelerates to roller coaster speed with a telephone call from Emma.  Her revealed secret to Kate is so stunning to Kate that she can barely handle it.  From there, the confusion rises as Angela’s obsession leads her to believe the dead child is her own and not Emma’s.  The reader will be amazed at the way this mystery unfolds and Fiona Barton is superb at plotting with sensitive time and interesting facts.  This could be anyone’s story but the way the lives of these three women interact is absolutely astonishing.  Kate Waters has not only a journalistic eye and ear but a sensitive soul that enables anyone she interviews to open up and expose supposedly insignificant facts.

This is fine, fine mystery or crime fiction reading and highly recommended to readers of all ages!

The Widow: A Novel by Fiona Barton

The Widow: A Novel.  Fiona Barton. Penguin Group (USA). February 2016. 336 pp.  ISBN#: 9781101990261.

Jean Taylor’s husband, Glen, died very recently.  Since then, Jean’s been hiding out at home, a fearful, shaking, exhausted woman who dare not open the door to any of these vulture reporters who smell a harrowing story that will thrill the public and yield even more stories.  None of them are allowed entry, until Jean finds she has silently welcomed tabloid reporter, Kate Waters, into her living room.  Kate has a homey style that comforts Jean, makes her feel that out of everyone Kate would understand. Still, Jean isn’t talking at all.  Kate manages to get Jean out of her home and into a hotel, hoping that a new place will allow her to rest and eventually loosen up enough to talk about her late husband, Glen. 

Detective Inspector Bob Sparkes has a different case plaguing his mind.  A little girl, Bella Elliott, was playing in her front yard one minute and the next minute was gone.  The police haven’t been able to find two year-old little girl since her disappearance in 2006 in Southampton, England; and now four years later after innumerable conversations with Jean Taylor, the truth is about to be told.

Glen Taylor was the suspect at the time of the kidnapping but his wife Jean believed his denial of the crime.  This is truly a psychological crime novel and Jean is a pathetically timid wife who lives her life to please her husband, obeys his every suggestion as well as command, and fears his disapproval although he has never hit her or abused her in any way.  When he’s home, he spends a great deal of time working on his computer, but Jean has no idea what that work actually involves.  She herself works as a hairdresser in a beauty salon, a job that doesn’t thrill her very much.  So Glen is her world – a world that is about to come crashing down with mind-numbing truth and identity-crushing reality!

The Widow: A Novel is a very nicely plotted first thriller story by Fiona Barton!  The character studies say it all!