Talking to Strangers – Fiona Barton | Book Review | #TalkingToStrangers | @figbarton @TransworldBooks @soph_ransompr

Three women. One Killer

Talking to strangers has never been more dangerous…
When forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found lifeless, abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined to beat every other reporter to the story.

And she already has a head start. Just days before Karen’s murder, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her about the expensive gifts and the starlit rendezvous. About the scammers and the creeps…

While police stay focused on local suspects, Kiki starts 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…

Publisher : Bantam / Transworld
Formats : Ebook, Audiobook, Hardback (15 August 2024) l Paperback 30 January 2025

MY THOUGHTS

My thanks to Poppy of Ransom PR for the tour invite and to the publisher for the copy to review. I’ve read and enjoyed previous books by Fiona Barton – The Widow, The Child, The Suspect, and although I haven’t yet read the book, I had a Q&A on the blog with Fiona for the first Ebbing book featuring DI Elise King (Local Gone Missing). Not having read the first book wasn’t an issue at all and I feel that Talking to Strangers could easily be read as a standalone.

Fiona’s former career as a journalist clearly comes through in her writing. Whilst the previous series had journalist Kate Waters as its main character, here the spotlight is on Elise, a detective and journalist Kiki Nunn with the occasional POV from Annie, a bereaved mother.

The victim, hairdresser Karen Simmons came across as …..erm, let’s say, ‘a larger than life character’, and the story delves into the murky and sometimes dangerous world of online dating which Karen had frequented. Single mother Kiki is desperate to boost her stagnant career, she is being assigned the least interesting stories for her local paper and is always on the hunt for an exclusive story. I took a long while to warm to Kiki, not only was she doorstepping people in her quest for that ‘exclusive’ but in doing so I felt at times she was withholding valuable information from the police. Elise’s sergeant Caro certainly had the measure of her.

Set in 2020 over a period of around 17 days, there are some superbly drawn characters here that give the story substance and depth, as hateful as some of them are. Elise King’s current health issues were sympathetically alluded to whilst Kiki’s struggles as a single mum were much in evidence. Both women come into contact with some really awful men whose presence on the dark web adds a sinister undercurrent – heaven help anyone who swipes their dating profile!

I very much enjoyed Talking to Strangers. It had such an addictive and interesting plot and I was so invested in the whole story that I just wanted to keep reading. There is more to the story than just one death and with a historical angle that Elise becomes involved with, there are plenty of surprises and revelations. I had my suspicions about so many people and surprised myself by guessing who was responsible at least partly correctly. I do love a good quote and one of my favourites was …“it’s like getting a tin without a label out of the cupboard for your dinner. You think you’re getting peaches, but it turns out to be dog food”.

I had already bought a copy of Local Gone Missing, and I’m now keen to bump this up the book pile to find out the beginning of Elise’s story. Fiona Barton is an author to recommend and Talking to Strangers is most definitely one to read.

At the time of this post, Talking to Strangers is available to download on Amazon UK for just 99p.

Fiona Barton is the New York Times bestselling author of Local Gone Missing, The Widow, The Child, and The Suspect. She has trained and worked 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, she lives in England.

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