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The Child by Fiona Barton

Meeting date: February 26, 2019
Star rating: 3.1/5 stars

As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers human remains, 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 has been found at the building site?

As Kate investigates, she unearths connections to a crime that rocked the city decades earlier: A child 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...

Comments and questions from attendees:

  • Jude is a high-powered woman. How did she not notice?! She has no remorse. She is self-centered. Her need for a male figure is pathological.
  • Do we still see women like Jude today?
  • Misogynist culture is everywhere - Will, the news, "old guard"
  • Journalism has changed - Kate's strategics were understandable, but still... law enforcement actually needed her physically to solve the crime (not just as a brain).
  • This one has a good twist!
  • Great characters - awesome for a split perspective book
  • Secrets: can they really stay buried?
Lowest rating: 2
Highest rating: 4
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