Malcolm Gladwell is a Canadian author and journalist whose books often use social scientific research to explain real-world events and phenomena. He weaves together diverse arrays of stories, drawing connections between them and using them to build his overarching theories. While he draws on academic research from sociology, psychology, and a number of other disciplines, his accessible style of writing is aimed at a general audience. Gladwell often seeks to challenge commonly held beliefs and assumptions through his books.

In Talking to Strangers, Gladwell takes inspiration from his observation that many highly publicized cases have arisen from strangers misunderstanding or misreading one another. To examine this phenomenon more closely, Gladwell interviewed scientists, criminologists, and psychologists, and the book features his reporting, research, and interviews along with his narrative retellings of the true stories that inspired the book. 

The book both opens and closes with the story of Sandra Bland. In her encounter with the police officer Brian Encinia, she acted much like anyone else would—irritated that she was pulled over for something so minor, upset that it was happening just as things were beginning to look up for her, and incredulous that a failure to signal a lane change ended in her arrest.