How well do you know the person you married? Are there no secrets between you? Or are there pieces of your spouse’s life you know nothing about?
Jean Taylor’s husband, Glen, is suspected of kidnapping and possibly killing a little girl who was taken from her yard, but a jury has said he is innocent. The police still suspect he is the one who did it though, and they won’t quit investigating him. Reporters refuse to leave them alone too.
Then while Glen and Jean are out shopping one day, Glen steps in front of a bus and is killed. Now the police and reporters are focused on Jean, sure they can get details about her husband and his activities from her that she wouldn’t tell them while he was still alive.
I haven’t read Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, the books that this one has been compared to, so I can’t say whether or not it is anything like them. The Widow was a great read though. In a way it reminded me of Columbo, a detective show that I watched when I was younger. In the beginning, you knew who the guilty party was, but it wasn’t until the end of the show that the guilty one was arrested.
But even though the impression is given that Glen was the one who took this little girl, I wasn’t completely sure of the guilty party until the very end. Jean had secrets too, and like the police and the reporters, I suspected she knew more than she was saying. Part of me thought that she might be guilty of that little girl’s disappearance in some way too.
I wasn’t sure what had really happened with the little girl, but I did have my suspicions. The wife kept saying she didn’t know exactly what had happened. Wanting to find out kept me turning the pages to discover the truth. Sometimes I sympathized with Jean, and sometimes I wanted to smack her for keeping her mouth shut.
I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. If you would like your own copy of this book, I have provided an Amazon link below.
Amazon Link: The Widow
Favorite Sentences:
She’d done the tea and sympathy, and now she had to stop dancing around the edge.
But evil was a slippery substance, glimpsed only occasionally and all the more horrifying for that, he knew.
We carry on as my secret starts to grow inside me, kicking at my heart and stomach, making me throw up in the downstairs toilet when I wake up and remember.
The atmosphere in the lab was fetid, a mixture of locker room and abandoned pizzas, and the technicians looked weary as they took away the machine for cataloging and mining.
“She’s trying to let it seep out in a controlled way, like when they used to bleed a patient in medieval times.”
New Words Learned:
anorak – a waterproof jacket, typically with a hood, of a kind originally used in polar regions
broderie anglaise – a whitework needlework technique incorporating features of embroidery, cutwork and needle lace that became associated with England, due to its popularity there in the 19th century.
contemporaneous – existing or occurring in the same period of time
detritus – a waste or debris of any kind
fishwife – a coarse-mannered woman who is prone to shouting
folie à deux – delusion or mental illness shared by two people in close association
footslogging– walking or marching for a long distance, typically wearily or with effort
Lambrusco – a sparkling red wine made from wine grapes grown in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy
mendacious – not telling the truth; lying
monty– the full amount expected, desired, or possible
omertà – (as practiced by the Mafia) a code of silence about criminal activity and a refusal to give evidence to authorities
oncology – the study of tumors
puerile – childishly sill and trivial
rejiggering – organize (something) differently; rearrange
Rioja – a wine produced in La Rioja, Spain
tristesse – a state of melancholy sadness
About the Author:
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. Born in Cambridge, England, she currently lives in southwest France. The Widow is her first novel.
