#BlogTour ‘Talking To Strangers’ by Fiona Barton

About the book…

Three women. One Killer.
Talking to strangers has never been more dangerous…

When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined this will be the big break she so desperately needs.

Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers on the beach under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers, the creeps, the man who followed her home the other night…

While the police appear to be focusing on local suspects, Kiki sets out to write the definitive piece on one woman’s fatal search for love. But she will soon learn that the search for truth can be just as deadly…

My thanks to Poppy and Sophie from Ransom PR and publishers Transworld for my gifted review copy of ‘Talking To Strangers’, which is out from August 15th in hardcover and e-book formats.

I have to be honest, I have been the biggest fan of this writer since her astonishing debut , ‘‘The Widow’ launched her into my book shelves,and ever since she has been a must buy author.

So this was a huge opportunity to catch up with the protagonist of ‘‘Local Gone Missing’

Elise King is still in the small coastal town of Ebbing, navigating her life as a detective , a single woman and a cancer survivor.

This time, she shares the narrative with reporter, Kiki, and mother Anna, as the missing, then murdered local woman, Karen Simmons, pulls all three of them together, each sharing their unique perspectives on this pivotal event.

Anna is the mother of a murdered child, Archie, found in the same woods as Karen, Kiki has possibly the last eveidence of Karen in the form of interviews regarding data in an internet age and Elise is finding her stride after having shared a work space with her ex in the previous novel.

The way that they, and the public at large view Karen reflects so well on the perceptions of women in modern society, and in turn bounces back on them as individuals and professionals.

For Anna, about to celebrate another of her children’s impending marriage means not talking about the missing child, the one whose death is left unresolved and mouldering in her consciousness.

For Elise, her role as a quasi-spinster is unsettling-who and what does she want to be? As a detective and as a person there are certain perceptions of her to be dedicated to her work and that should entail certain sacrifices-but does it really? How does she move forward from trauma when she is constantly dealing with the fall out of others?

For Kiki, she starts as a journalist looking into internet dating, which is where she and Karen cross paths, but her death and the way that locals spin her death as sad, pathetic and almost deserving-this is reflected over and over, in the way men berated her as ‘easy’, ‘promiscuous’, ‘asking for it’ , openly and unashamedly, is hypertension inducing and so realsitc. It’s not heavy handed, it’s the instinctive way a lot of men who have met her online dating have regarded her as disposable, gradeable and forgettable.

Karen is the cautionary tale for those who dare step out and look for a connection on their own terms. It’s also how we spin a tale to suit the victors-the parade of ‘if onlys…‘ really reflect on the way Fiona’s previous role as a journalist gives a truthfulness to how the general public like to box off and categorise.

It is the determination and character of the three central women who refuse to let societal tropes define them and how they live their lives, whilst acknowledging how we can be susceptible to playing on them, that drives home the tragedy of Karen’s life and death.

Even as Kiki goes deep into the world of dating, she is ever conscious her role as a single parent of a young daughter, balancing worlds as herself and a role model

She is almost ashamed of herself for her determination to bring Karen back to life in order to promote herself from side bars to the front page.

The gripping murder investigation is page turning fiction at its best with a firm foot in the reality of middle aged women trying to be unapologetically themselves, The short, sharp chapters bounce back and forth, reminding me of the women in a Greek chorus, singing the tale of a woman just looking for love, in all the wrong place.

The presumption is that talking to strangers can lead to unwanted consequences, but those closer to home are more likely to be the culprit .

A gripping and wryly humorous novel that had me laughing to myself as well as feeling deeply sad and angry for the fate of Karen-was her name deliberately chosen to reflect the generic social construct of women who expect to want it all, I wonder?-and very much invested in Elise and Kiki’s growing relationship.

About the author…

Fiona Barton’s debut, The Widow, was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, and has been published in thirty-seven countries and optioned for television.

Her second novel, The Child, and her third, , were both bestsellers.

Born in Cambridge, Fiona currently lives on the south coast in West Sussex. 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.

While working as a journalist, Fiona reported on many high-profile criminal cases and
developed a fascination with watching those involved, their body language and verbal tics.

She interviewed people at the heart of these crimes, from the guilty to their families, as well as those on the periphery, and found it was those just outside the spotlight who interested her most…

Links-http://fionabartonauthor.com/

Twitter @figbarton @TransworldBooks @soph_ransompr