Review: The Widow

The Widow by Fiona Barton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up in an airport, prior to a nine-hour flight. As the cover states, it was "engrossing", "suspenseful" and I was overall entertained by the plot.

The story is told through different viewpoints which made it a little confusing. I should have made a note of the events on a bookmark. That would have helped. However, it wasn't a dealbreaker.

The story revolves around the marriage of a man and a woman and how it slowly comes apart. the husband is accused of kidnapping a little girl. There is the abduction of a child, pornography, suggestion of child molestation, neighbors who mean well but who abandon the couple toward the end. The unreliable narration is provided by the wife, but it's unreliable because SHE is near her breaking point. It's not because of any fault of the writer. I wondered if the wife was slowly becoming insane. That actually made it interesting for me, watching and wondering if she was seeing things are they really are or if she was seeing things as she wished them to be.

The ending was not a complete surprise but there was a touch of "Oh, really?" as I thought it was going in a different direction.

It's a satisfying summer read.

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