The Widow by Fiona Barton *** (of 4)

An inattentive single mother sets her two-year-old daughter Bella outside to play. When she recognizes that it is too quiet and remembers to go look for Bella the shocking recognition that she is gone explodes like a bomb. The main suspect is a controlling husband in a childless marriage who is either a murderous pedophile or an excoriated victim of circumstantial evidence. But the question of how controlling he is remains in doubt because Jean Taylor, his widow because as the story opens he has just been hit by a bus, is not a totally reliable narrator.

Bob, the Chief Detective investigating the kidnapping, is determined to find Bella's abductor. So, too, is Kate, a reporter who is a little more humane than the rest of the British media anxious to grab, or worse, make a story. Slowly, painfully slowly, the obsessions of five main characters are laid bare. Bella's mom cannot let go of the publicity affiliated with her Find Bella campaign. Kate and Bob remain tied to the case long after any new evidence could possibly emerge. Jean's husband, as seen through Jean's eyes, is either a loving husband or addicted to "nonsense" on the internet. And Jean creates secret scrapbooks of children she wishes she could bear. The inner torment of each mind is so accurately portrayed, The Widow is actually kind of creepy.