The cover is one piece of beauty. Showing a lot and yet nothing. And the story between the two bookcases is one great piece of work. Karin Slaughter, you simply rock! I´ve read almost every book the author has written so far. And for me, it was very clear that I wanted to read this new one as well. Not only because I had heard so many great things about The Good Daughter, but mostly because I like reading a Karin Slaughter book very much.
The Good Daughter*
by
Karin Slaughter
The Good Daughter #1
Publisher Harper Collins UK on July 13, 2017
Genre Thriller
Pages 512
Format Hardcover
Source Library
Goodreads
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Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind. Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn´s happy small-town family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father Pikeville´s notorious defence attorney devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night. Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father´s footsteps to become a lawyer herself the archetypal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatized Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it´s a case which can´t help triggering the terrible memories she´s spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime which destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won´t stay buried forever.
Story
When Charlie is about to meet someone at her old school, she is all the sudden right in the middle of a nightmare. A shooter killed two people, and Charlie is forced to deal with what had happened in a very strange and unwanted way. Her father, a lawyer, wants her to help him, but not in the way she thought. And when other bad things start to happen, she knows that she needs help from the outside. And asking that person for help means going back to her terrible past again. And with that, her demand for a fight is bigger than ever.
Style
The Good Daughter is a fantastic thriller that shows the reader from different perspectives what had happened in the past of the Quinn family and what is happening today. Both sisters have dealt with the killing of their mother in different ways.
Karin Slaughter´s language is clear, blunt and with many surprising twists and turns, you don´t expect or see coming. I was literally hooked and thrilled from page one to the last. The life of a small town where men believe they are the only ones who can handle things, rule and sometimes seem to think that they are God, is not the same, since the brutal killing of Charlie´s mother Gamma.
Characters
While reading it became more and more obvious to me, that not everything is the way it seems at first sight and that Charlie had changed. The former life-loving and fun girl who is always full of mischief had turned into a young woman still struggling with her past. Instead of dealing with it and working everything out so that she can start to heal, she is in a state where she supplanted everything.
The great dialogues and the strong scenes show her fight in a very impressive way and let the reader be a part of it.
Karin Slaughter once again shows figures that are very strong and weak at the same time and who play with each other and the reader in a perfect way. They all have a profoundness; a lack of choice and they all have gone through hell – each of them in a different way and some of them aren´t even aware of it.
Charlie is a woman who needs to have everything under control. Since the evil things had happened to her during her childhood, the box where she had put all the evil in, is strongly hidden deep in her soul. And poisoning her further life, marriage and how she sees the world now. Oh, there is no doubt, that she has become a strong and very smart woman, and that she isn´t willing to let others suffer the same, not if she can avoid it. But the fact, that she has never worked herself through all the bad she had to endure, is very threatening. And when she is forced to watch the shooting at her old school, her past comes up with force and she has to deal with it. Though she doesn´t want to.
Conclusion
That was a great thriller. Probably one of the best ones, the author has ever written. Strong characters, hate, passion, a black widow and men who believe they can rule and control everything are very well combined. Nothing is as it seems, and when the past and the present crush together and the truth finally sees the light, nothing stays the way it was. Holy moly, this is for sure a must-read for every thriller-fan. For Karin Slaughter fans for sure.
Happy reading
*I read the German edition new release by
Harper Collins on August 3, 2017
Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter, born 1971, is from Atlanta, Georgia. In 2003 her debut novel Blindsighted was published and went straight to the top of the international bestselling list and catapulted her onto the Thriller-Olympus. She is the #1 internationally bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including the Will Trent and Grant County series and the instant New York Times bestselling standalones, Cop Town and Pretty Girls. There are more than 35 million copies of her books in print around the world.
