“I’ve always preferred crazy to stupid. Stupid can break your heart.” 

Rusty Quinn didn’t have many fans in the small Georgia town of Pikeville. As a criminal defense attorney, Rusty was charged with helping accused criminals avoid jail and he was unfortunately pretty good at his job. It was therefore not quite that shocking when masked intruders broke into his house one night demanding justice. The night ended with Rusty’s wife Gamma dead on the kitchen floor, his eldest daughter Samantha buried alive with a bullet lodged in her brain and his youngest daughter Charlotte running for her life.

Fast-forward nearly 30 years and family has moved on, except not really. Sam left Pikeville behind for the Big Apple (does anyone actually call it that anymore?) while Charlie stayed to follow in her father’s footsteps — criminal defense. After a raunchy and drunken evening with a stranger, Charlie finds herself back at her old middle school to return a phone that doesn’t belong to her when all hell breaks loose. Shots are fired and people are dead. Two people, actually — 8-year-old Lucy Alexander and the school’s principal, Douglas Pinkman. A small goth girl is found with a gun in her hand a confession on her lips. Of course, Rusty is summoned to represent the accused school shooter, Kelly Wilson, and Charlie is tasked with being his second-in-command. As their investigation unfolds, Charlie realizes that Kelly isn’t who she seems to be. And what happened to the Quinn family 30 years ago isn’t quite what they thought, either.

I enjoyed The Good Daughter, even if I never really understood what the title meant (though, admittedly, I didn’t really try that hard to figure it out). The dual murder mystery — the school shooting and the Quinn family drama — drew me in (duh) and kept me intrigued. I will say, though, that about halfway through the book I felt a little sorry for Kelly Wilson because it didn’t seem like anyone was paying her or her trial much attention. As the story arced, though, everything came full circle and Kelly (and Sam) got the justice they deserved. Just as I thought, I’m about to go down a long, dark Karin Slaughter wormhole. See y’all on the other side.

My favorite scene: As one of the first steps in Charlie’s investigation of Kelly, she ends up at the Wilson’s family home in a poorer part of town. The girl’s mother is distraught and confused as Charlie searches the house hoping to find some clues as to who Kelly Wilson really is. What Charlie finds — items that point to a girl that is the opposite of the goth kid sitting in a hallway with a gun in her hand — make you realize just how troubled the girl truly is and gives you all the feels because something is just not right.

Grade: ★★★★☆

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