The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter / Review by Didi DeWitt
The Good Daughter
By Karin Slaughter
William Morrow
$27.99
ISBN 978-0062430243
Published August 8, 2017
Book of the Day
The Good Daughter is the latest thriller from Karin Slaughter. It is intense. Samantha and Charlotte are sisters living in a small town in northern Georgia. Sam is smart and fast while Charlie struggles to keep up. Witness to the brutal murder of their mother, Samantha, and Charlotte are forced into the woods where they expect to also be shot. At the mouth of what is to be their grave, Sam's only thought is to distract the killers long enough for Charlie to get away. The last thing her mother told her to do was to take care of Charlie. She is a good daughter. As a shot to her head sends her into the abyss - she just glimpses her sister running into the woods...
Twenty-eight years later... Charlie still lives in the same town. The perpetrators convicted and sent to prison. She has put the past behind her. Charlie and her father, Rusty work together as defense attorneys. But one poor decision puts her in the wrong place at the wrong time and she is witness to another shooting. A troubled girl has brought her father's gun to school and killed two people.
Slaughter tackles so many of today's headlines in this novel - home invasions, murder, school shootings, infidelity, conspiracy, police brutality, secret deals, extortion, transgenderism... and she does it very well. The story lines are clear and the conclusion is more than satisfying. The characters are like real people. They have faults and make really bad decisions but they can also work really hard to make amends. Even the worst people can have redeeming qualities.