LE PORTRAIT MAGAZINE MARCH-SEPTEMBER ISSUE | Page 46

Fiona Barton studied body language and speech patterns at many
criminal trials during her reporting career. Photograph: Karen Robinson
for the Observer
News journalist Barton’s spare psychological thriller about child
abduction examines the lies we tell ourselves to survive
Fiona Barton’s debut novel, The Widow, is being billed as 2016’s The
Girl on the Train. Translation rights have been sold in more than 23
languages and the TV rights have been snapped up.
A psychological crime thriller, it tells the story of Jean, whose husband,
Glen, was acquitted of abducting a two-year-old girl. Now he’s dead,
she’s preparing to tell her story.
Everyone has their own moral compass, but then you've got a news
editor shouting down the phone…
Barton, a former news editor at the Daily Telegraph, and award-winning
chief reporter at the Mail on Sunday, has worked on many high-profile
trials and crime stories, including the Madeleine McCann disappearance.
Over the years, she became a “professional watcher”, studying body
language and speech patterns for clues. And, she tells me, she became
fascinated by the phenomenon of the wife who stands by a man accused
of a terrible crime. What is the psychology of that woman, she
wondered. Does she believe he is innocent or is it an abusive
relationship?
In court, she’d often think: “Are the family hearing the terrible details
for the first time? What are they thinking? What it will be like when they
get him home, if he’s found not guilty? That sense of: Oh my God, did I
ever know him? Who is he?”

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