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One of the most highly anticipated thrillers of the year - as seen in People, Entertainment Weekly, Time, USA Today, Bustle, Good Housekeeping.com, HelloGiggles, The Boston Globe, PureWow, The Dallas Morning News, and more! "The Child is a perfect blend of beach read and book club selection. It's a fascinating and fitting follow-up to [Barton's] best-selling debut novel, The Widow. . . .[A] page-turning whodunit ... .A novel that is both fast-paced and thought-provoking, it keeps the reader guessing right to the end." - USA Today "Fiona Barton brings back reporter Kate Waters from the best-selling The Widow and delivers another winner with The Child. ... A truly engaging tale. Those who enjoyed The Widow will discover that Barton has only gotten better." - The Associated Press"A lightning-paced, twisty story with an ending so surprising you might have to read it twice." - GoodHousekeeping.com"Multiple narratives mean non-stop action in The Child ... Like her fellow novelists, Fiona Barton knows showing is better than telling because it allows for the reader's perspective ... whether the conclusion occasions a shock or an 'aha!' doesn't matter; it's satisfying due to all the work that's gone into its discovery." - NPR.orgThe author of the stunning New York Times bestseller The Widow returns with a brand-new novel of twisting psychological suspense.As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers a tiny skeleton, buried for years. For journalist Kate Waters, it's a story that deserves attention. She cobbles together a piece for her newspaper, but at a loss for answers, she can only pose a question: Who is the Building Site Baby?As Kate investigates, she unearths connections to a crime that rocked the city decades earlier: A newborn baby was stolen from the maternity ward in a local hospital and was never found. Her heartbroken parents were left devastated by the loss.But there is more to the story, and Kate is drawn - house by house - into the pasts of the people who once lived in this neighborhood that has given up its greatest mystery. And she soon finds herself the keeper of unexpected secrets that erupt in the lives of three women - and torn between what she can and cannot tell ...



About the Author

Fiona Barton

My career has taken some surprising twists and turns over the years. I have been a journalist - senior writer at the Daily Mail, news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and chief reporter at The Mail on Sunday, where I won Reporter of the Year at the National Press Awards, gave up my job to volunteer in Sri Lanka and since 2008, have trained and worked with exiled and threatened journalists all over the world.
But through it all, a story was cooking in my head.
The worm of this book infected me long ago when, as a national newspaper journalist covering notorious crimes and trials, I found myself wondering what the wives of those accused really knew - or allowed themselves to know.
It took the liberation of my career change to turn that fascination into a tale of a missing child, narrated by the wife of the man suspected of the crime, the detective leading the hunt, the journalist covering the case and the mother of the victim.
Much to my astonishment and delight, The Widow is a Sunday Times bestseller, has been sold to 29 countries and is available now in the US and will be published around the world in the coming months.
However, the sudden silence of my characters feels like a reproach and I am currently working on a second book.
My husband and I are living the good life in south-west France, where I am writing in bed, early in the morning when the only distraction is our cockerel, Sparky, crowing.



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