Latest Books TALKING TO STRANGERS by Fiona Barton

TALKING TO STRANGERS by Fiona Barton

By Mindy Carlson

Three Women, Three Angles, and Death by Dating App

Fiona Barton’s latest novel, TALKING TO STRANGERS, draws the reader through a complex web of half-truths and grey lies. By giving us three different perspectives on the crime, we’re immersed more completely in the mystery, making the ending three times as thrilling.

Karen Simmons is the life of the party. A strong, single woman in her mid-forties, she’s taking control of the dating scene and determined to find her “Mr. Right.” When she’s found murdered in Knapton Wood the day after Valentine’s Day, all signs point to the culprit being someone she picked up through a dating app.

Detective Inspector (DI) Elise King is on the case. She feels fragile as she recovers from breast cancer and a recently failed relationship. However, she’s determined to prove she’s still got what it takes to solver her cases.

Kiki Nunn is stunned to hear the woman she’s just interviewed for a fluff piece on dating in the Internet age has been murdered. As she reviews her tapes and notes of their conversations, Kiki knows she’s got an incredible scoop. This is a story that could propel her back into the big leagues. She’s just got to figure out who the killer is.

Annie Curtis’ life was shattered years ago when someone murdered her 8-year-old son Archie in Knapton Wood. She’s tried to pull the jagged pieces of her life back together and move on like her family wants, but when Karen’s body is found in the same place as Archie’s, it all comes rushing back. The unanswered questions. The doubts. But this time she’s going to get answers.

The Big Thrill was delighted to speak to Fiona Barton about writing from three different perspectives, loneliness, and online dating.

TALKING TO STRANGERS is told from the perspectives of three women: a detective, a reporter, and a mother. Why select these three women to tell this story?

It started with me wanting the detective and the journalist as investigators. They’re two very different people trying to get to the same truth and that creates friction. I also wanted a third strand, which was the grieving mother, Annie, and the past murder of her 8-year-old child.

I like stories with different narrators. I think it’s because as a journalist, I always spoke to a lot of people. To hear what they saw, what they felt, because that’s what you do when you’re writing the news. You want as many points of view as you can get.

I’ve selected my three narrators for very different reasons, but when I started writing it, one of the themes that emerged was loneliness, lonely women. All three are alone, and I thought it was really interesting to look at how that has changed their lives. Elise King had a long-term relationship which blew up, and she’s also fearful in the way that people who’ve been very ill are fearful of allowing people to see them as they are now.

Kiki is alone, but has a lovely daughter. She’s trying to claw her way back into serious journalism from fluff pieces, but she’s also searching for connection.

And Annie is actually married but very alone; very solitary in her marriage for various reasons. For years, she’s kept the grief of her son’s murder inside because nobody in the family wanted to talk about it anymore. They wanted to move on if they could—not in an uncaring way, but in a realistic way. And she couldn’t. When Karen dies in the same location, she’s allowing herself to talk about it with others for the first time.

You begin your story with the murder of a single woman in her mid-forties, Karen, who’s using a dating app to find love. What inspired you to use this as the jumping off point for TALKING TO STRANGERS?

I didn’t want Karen to be the body in the ditch and that’s it. I wanted the reader to see Karen as she was—a lovely woman who was wanting to find love. I wanted them to have a connection with her as the story starts.

I was also interested in online dating. It’s not something I’ve done, I’m afraid. I dated well before that, but I was really interested in the risks that people take. They’re talking to strangers, but they have an optimism and a hope that they’re going find The One. That’s an interesting construct for me.

Your portrayal of the internet dating pool as an arena for predation of women is painfully realistic. What research did you do to make your three main characters and their situations so relatable?

I talked to a number of women who used dating apps regularly and a journalist who investigated the dodgy end of dating apps. My dating experience was totally analogue, and I couldn’t go on the dating apps and have the experience feel real or inform these characters. So, it was much better to talk to women who do use them, who enjoy using them, and also have a look at the problems that you can face with them as well.

When you wrote Local Gone Missing, did you know you were writing a series? How did that change how you approached your writing?

I certainly wasn’t planning on writing a series. I’m not much of a planner. I’ve written three Kate Walters books. After the first Kate Walters book I thought, “I like this character.” So, she stayed for three books, and then I thought, “I’m going to try something different.” So, I wrote Local Gone Missing and introduced Elise King and all of her problems. And Kiki is a big player in that. Then I started thinking that, actually, they’re quite a nice pairing so, I carried on for another book.

What’s next?

I’m starting to write my sixth book and neither Kiki nor Elise has appeared yet. I’m not sure at the moment if they’ll appear at all, but we’ll see.