The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

3.5 Stars

If you know me, you will know that means it’s time for the (porny) library’s Winter Reading Challenge and my chance to obtain yet another free coffee mug to add to my hoard. Even though the library up in the ‘burbs is where I obtain most of my smut, the challenge this bitterly cold season is not to read all about hiding salami, rather it is . . . . .



WHODUNITS! Now if there is one thing I read just as much as I read porn, it’s mystery/thrillers. The Good Daughter had been on my TBR since way back when I somehow managed to abstain from clicking the request button over on NetGalley. Little did I know that upon its release I would be approximately nine trillionth on the wait list. Lucky for me, my turn came around just in time. Of course, being a thriller I can’t say allllllllll the things. (I even went and peaked at a couple of reviews as well as the synopsis to confirm that – NOPE – can’t even say the one thing.) Here’s what I can tell you (AND DON’T YOU FUCKING JUDGE ME!): The Good Daughter was like a blast from the past when I was in love with all things John Grisham . . .



Hey! I said don’t judge. I haven’t read Grisham in a fortnight, mainly because he started churning out stuff at a pace even Stephen King couldn’t keep up with and I was a little scurrrred he was going to go down the path of James Patterson. But back in the dizzy???? Remember A Time To Kill??? Oh, such good stuff. THAT’S what this made me think of with a school shooting and a poor man’s Atticus Finch (mixed with a little smooth-talking Harold Hill for good measure) and a local prosecutor who could give little possum-tailed Jeff Sessions a run for his money in the smarmy department and country folk and then . . . . . AND THEN!!!!! . . . . there’s this whooooooooooooooole other storyline going on simultaneously regarding a superbadawful (or actually quite a pile of superbadawfuls) that happened years and years and years ago that somehow will tie in to the present goings on. And that’s all I can tell you without spilling some beans.

I will say that according to Goodreads, The Good Daughter sits at over 500 pages. It doesn’t feel like it. I breezed through this in a day. Minor gripes are as follows:

1. There were no surprises. YMMV obviously, but if you read a lot of mysteries you probably will see everything coming too.

2. At around the 50% mark something happened (no spoilsies) and then the story did a bit of a rewind/retelling and that is not a tactic I enjoy. I didn’t enjoy it here either and I kind of stalled out for a bit and went and cleaned closets until I knew I would be able to find a rhythm again.

The good news is I fell in love with Charlie so hard that I either want to marry her or wear her as a skin suit . . . .

“A possum stared at me through the door all night.

“That’s Bill. He’s my lover.”

“Possums can transmit leptospirosis, E. coli, salmonella. Their scat can carry a bacteria that causes flesh-eating ulcers.”

“We’re not into the kinky stuff.”

Mitchell says skin suit but I’m still debating it.

Book # 1 in my quest for free crap (Hoarders, here I come!!!!). While I currently have about eleventy-four library books checked out and another ten thousand on my reading room shelves that will get me to my goal, I’m always open for suggestions when it comes to thrillers so feel free to comment with your faves. James Patterson novels need not apply : )