"The Widow" by Fiona Barton

An audio book

In one time-line (timeline A) Jean (quiet hairdresser?) and Glen were married for 15 years. Childless Londoners. Kept themselves to themselves. Glen died 3 weeks ago in a road accident, run over by a bus - suicide or murder? Kate, a reporter, tries to get Jean's story. She's been turning reporters down since Glen got in trouble with the police. There was porn on his PC but we're not told more. We see the encounter through the PoV of the two women. Kate offers money and protection from other reporters - a chance for Kate to tell her side of the story. The 2 of them plus Mick, a minder/photographer, go to a nice hotel for a few days.

In another timeline (timeline B) Bella (aged 2) has disappeared from her front garden in Southampton. Kate tries to talk to her mother, Dawn. Detective Sparks thinks Kate's the best of a bad lot. And v.v. Sparks accepts that new clues might emerge when reporters befriend victims, and that publicity is a tool. The investigation gets nowhere for several months until Glen (a delivery man) is interviewed.

The 2 timelines allow foreshadowing - e.g. in retrospect we learn that child-sex was involved and that Glen got compensation, before we learn the details in the other timeline.

A: Jean is relieved that Glen has died. She seems so good at dissembling - we're told her thoughts during the dialogues. It's 2 years since the problems began. They got £250K compensation from police (because of a "silly trick" they played), she'll get life assurance money and £50k from newspapers. She had deperately wanted children but Glen was infertile. She kept a scrap-book of cute babies. She looked after neighbours' babies.

B: The police used chat-rooms to trick him. At the court case Glen is found innocent. When Jean threatens to leave him, Glen says he'd seen Bella on that day, after which his mind went blank. She thinks that he'd thought about getting a child for her, so she stays. Glen gets compensation because the police entrapped him. Sparks (married with grown kids) is taken off the case, but doesn't give up. He keeps in touch with Dawn and Kate. After 2 years or so Dawn sells her story to the Herald (not Kate's paper), demanding a retrial. Glen threatens to libel. Dawn later remarries. She has a new child. Jean is jealous of her.

B: We have a chapter where we get Glen's PoV in the 3rd person. We learn about his patience in chatrooms - it was a premeditated kidnap.

A: Jean wants to sell up, move, go south to be by "her baby girl". After the inquest on Glen's death she gets up in the night to drive south. She's being tailed. They find her under a tree. She'd been there before, once, with Glen the week before he died - nearly 4 years after the incident.

Other reviews

• (Told in chapters that alternate between multiple narrators and time periods, THE WIDOW presents the reader with an addictively muddled picture of Jean, her husband, and the crime he was accused of committing.)
• (The idea of a woman who stands beside an alleged monster is an intriguing one, and very nearly well-executed here, if it weren't bogged down with other too-familiar plotlines)
• goodreads
• saturdayreader