Premise: A mother and her young son, on the run for nine years, hiding in dusty small towns, never staying long in one place. Drew is paranoid that her husband Adam is hunting them, wanting to take their son Michael away from her. In years past, Adam stripped away her self-esteem to the point where the police believe she’s a murderer; bit by bit we are slowly fed the back story. She protects Michael at all costs from having a normal, settled life until his need for a real school and peer-socializing slightly outweighs her fears. Unable to trust or confide in anyone, Drew struggles with the stresses of a new town, trying to keep the lowest profile possible, yearning to provide a proper home. Making friends with Jolie and John, the parents of Michael’s new friend Jack, is fraught with evasions or outright lies about her past. Jolie’s attractive cousin Parker is smitten with Drew, adding more pressure as she tries to keep her distance.
Drew chose this town because she can have regular visits with elderly psychiatrist Dr. Collins—the man who treated Adam as a youngster. She knows Adam sustains the rumour that she is crazy, reason for self-doubt that her memory might be unstable. Collins will know the true nature of the psychopathic Jekyll-Hyde monster she married; she needs his supportive evidence to go to the police with the truth: it was Adam who killed someone. Convincing Collins to help her discloses that he has his own agenda. Occasionally Michael’s plaintive voice adds to the story. We also hear at times from Catherine, the damaged woman who replaced Drew in Adam’s obsessive, abusive attentions.
There are some sick people in this twisting tale. The introductory scenes are enigmatic glimpses of a frightening mind at work and it doesn’t bode to end well. A few credibility / consistency issues popped up for me ... Drew’s mother; locked doors; Michael’s stress; living for nine years on cash? Nonetheless, All the Lovely Pieces provides more than enough surprises and chills in an imaginative plot.
One-liners:
▪ Scars on my wrist glisten in the sunlight, taunting my already fragile thoughts. (32)
▪ I need to get answers from Dr. Collins and get the hell out of here. (53)
▪ Running away again with another man’s baby is not an option. (196)
▪ Is she telling the truth when she says she will still love me when the baby gets here? (201)
Multi-liners:
▪ When mom wakes up, she’s going to make me leave. Then Jack will have fun with all his other friends and not me. (68)
▪ Few people recognized dissociation from complex trauma disorder. But Parker had. (71)
▪ Success is now defined by my ability to stay hidden. He took everything from me. (77)
▪ I used to paint to tell stories, to convey emotion and thoughts, my views of the world. Now my painting reveals all the things I don’t know. (79)
▪ A law enforcement officer. Can he sense my guilt? Smell my crimes? (95)
▪ My heart swelled at the first sight of my baby boy. I reached out my arms, but Adam shook his head. (233)
▪ I thought I’d had no tears left to cry. I was wrong. (233)
Catherine
“Darling, we’re getting closer. I was at the lab last week. The scientists at the Vocal Reconstruction Center are so close.” He takes my hands in his and squeezes tight. “The injections are in the testing phase.”
Injections of a highly elastic gel that promise to give me back my ability to speak, to someday perform on stage again. He says a voice box will make me sound like a robot. He wants better for me. My patience is growing thin these days. I feel my body turning against me. (69)
Michael
The fact that my little boy has made a connection with Parker is paralyzing. The way he’s come to love Jolie and her family and his friends and teachers. He’s created his own little village of people he depends on, people he needs. We can no longer pick up and move on without consequences. (154)
Parker
I’m out of my car and in his arms before I can think better of it. I almost want Dr. Collins to call the police. I want this nightmare to end ... I choke on a sob, knowing all of this was for nothing. I’m a murderer, a child abductor, a crazy woman ...
“Hey ... shhhh, it’s okay.” Parker’s voice is calming. The feel of his strong arms around my body is unexpectedly comforting. “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he says, whispering the words against my hair as the snow falls around us.
I have no right to need him. Being in his arms goes against everything I’ve done until now to keep Michael and me safe.
But this man, these arms, and the feel of the cold snow falling on my face are the only things that remind me that I’m still alive, that I made it out of the hell that was life with Adam. (144)
Her last hope
Dr. Collins’s body wasn’t found. The police and the neighbours believe he wasn’t home when the fire started but have been unable to locate him or contact him. I know he was home, and if he didn’t die in the fire, he’s still out there somewhere ...
I hadn’t slept the night before—tossing and turning, avoiding Parker’s silent, questioning glances. Images of the old man’s sadistic expression as he’d set the box of evidence to flames haunting me. His words taunting me.
You couldn’t save my son ...
Would I be able to save my own? (228)
Sharon Bolton. Daisy in Chains. UK: Transworld Publishers/Bantam Press, 2016. Ebook download from TPL.
Maggie Rose, despite her vaunted reputation as an outstanding lawyer and successful novelist, is not a particularly sympathetic character. There’s something off about this woman with the signature blue hair. She can be abrupt, dismissive, and she talks to herself. Her renown is from overturning convictions of men imprisoned for heinous crimes, winning their releases. Naturally she’s not popular with police and prosecution forces—their work, or work lapses, often provide the mistake she needs to unravel a conviction. Now the fan club of a high-profile prisoner wants her to study the case of Hamish Wolfe, a medical doctor convicted of killing three women. The “Wolfe Pack” includes Hamish’s mother Sandra, and the mother of missing Zoe Sykes; some believe that Zoe was a fourth victim and want him to reveal where her body is. All the women were distinctly overweight, a common feature that can be traced to Hamish’s taste in university days, especially his girlfriend Daisy.
After meeting Hamish in prison a few times, Maggie agrees to take on his case; it seems that even proud Maggie is not immune to the charm of this handsome, magnetic but scary man. Rather than create antagonism and even more adverse publicity, DI Pete Weston decides to cooperate with Maggie in her post-facto search for exculpatory evidence or alternative suspects, although they can’t quite trust each other. She uncovers some promising anomalies but other agendas are working against her. Lack of some detail here is disconcerting. For example, it’s unclear how Maggie accomplishes her goals without having to appear in court; a previously convicted murderer was said to be “released” from prison without mention of technicalities like appeal court or due process. The climactic buildup has several elements to keep track of, some going against the grain of characterization thus far. I’d say this is not Bolton’s best novel by a long shot. She set a very high bar earlier on.
Teasers
▪ A convicted murderer has sent her a rose. (27)
▪ By his actions, Wolfe has legitimized the ill treatment and abuse of people of size. He has set us back decades. (45)
▪ We associate good looks with goodness. No arguments. We just do. (93)
▪ “Wolfe is the ultimate bad-boy celebrity,” she said. (137)
▪ Association with a notorious killer can bring a twisted sort of status to women with low self-esteem. (138)
▪ “You have blue hair,” he says. “I thought you were nuts the second I laid eyes on you.” (238)
▪ “My third question is why don’t you appear in court? Why do you avoid the limelight?” (254)
▪ “I make enemies and social media gives them a voice.” (315)
▪ “I was giving you the best alternative suspect you could hope for and you were worryingly unmoved by it.” (384)
▪ She knows what is happening, can hear it. The guard is being beaten up. (470)
▪ If Hamish turns his back on her tonight, she will climb to the highest point of the Gorge. She won’t be the first wronged woman to seek solace in its cold, high edge. (538)
Karin Slaughter. The Good Daughter. USA: William Morrow/HarperCollins Publishers, 2017.
An unbearably tense, terrifying opening sequence starts a hair-raising thriller set in Georgia. Sisters Samantha (Sam) and Charlotte (Charlie – why choose names that diminish to the male?) Quinn are witness to their mother Gamma’s murder; the damage to them that followed took years of struggle and adjustment. Both become lawyers, like their eccentric father Rusty, although estranged from each other. Sam has overcome numerous hurdles to become successful in New York, while Charlie practices in her hometown, sharing an office with Rusty. What pulls the sisters together again twenty-eight years later is a school shooting that Charlie happened to witness. Kelly, a low-IQ student, shot the school principal and a random child. Rusty is going to represent Kelly in court; Georgia has capital punishment for murder and diminished mental capacity does not necessarily get anyone off the hook. Defending criminals is Rusty’s calling, for which he is highly unpopular in the town.
The action moves very fast on that day of the shooting as Charlie’s shock kicks into lawyer mode to protect Kelly from police brutality. Some of Charlie’s reactions and emotions are a bit bewildering until we understand how the situation revived her own horrendous past experience; it’s not entirely clear yet why her husband Ben had walked out on her. What’s more, he’s a prosecutor working for district attorney Ken Coin. With Rusty temporarily in the hospital, Charlie and Sam make notes for his case, even as their backstory unspools. Sam represents Kelly at the arraignment, despite the prosecution’s corrupt procedure. Revelation after revelation keeps coming. Author Slaughter explores the legal ramifications in a complex criminal case, she plumbs the depths of misogynist power, and her character studies are intensely gripping. Surely this book tops her acclaimed opus. So who is the good daughter? ... it may be up to you to decide.
One-liners
▪ All these years later, she could still recall what it felt like to hold Sam’s trembling fingers inside her own. (79)
▪ She had learned the hard way that Holler people generally answered the door with some kind of weapon in their hands, so instead of traversing the cinder block front steps, she walked to the bay window. (107)
▪ “I’m just an ol’ boy who misses the kind of phones that weighed twenty pounds and cost two bucks a month to rent from Ma Bell.” (323)
▪ “I’m sorry I’m not happy and peppy for you, Sam, but my give-a-fuck is broken.” (386)
Multi-liners
▪ “There are very different priorities between a government-run school system and a government-run murder prosecution. One is trying to help her and the other is trying to kill her.” (123-4)
▪ “Hold your fire till this settles down. Never kick a fresh turd on a hot day.” (141)
▪ “A trial is nothing but a competition to tell the best story. Whoever sways the jury wins the trial. And Ken’s come right out the gate with a damn good story.” (364-5)
▪ “He didn’t want to be embalmed. He said it was beneath his dignity.” (384)
▪ Ben had once said that all they had to do was wait for racist, sexist old bastards like Newton to die. What he hadn’t realized was that they kept making new ones. (429)
▪ “Do you know what it’s like to not matter? To live in the same house as a man for almost your entire adult life and feel like you’re nothing? That your wishes, your desires, your plans, are irrelevant?” (493)
Charlie’s men:
Rusty’s bony fingers held a pen the same way he held a cigarette. Anyone who talked to him on the phone expected him to look like a cross between colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn. He was not. Rusty Quinn was a tall, rangy beanpole of a man, but not in the same way as Ben, because Charlie would have thrown herself off the mountain before she married someone like her father.
Other than their height and an inability to throw out old underwear, the two men in her life were nothing alike. Ben was a dependable but sporty minivan. Rusty was an industrial-size bulldozer. Despite two heart attacks and a double bypass, he gladly continued to indulge his vices: Bourbon. Fried chicken. Unfiltered Camels. Screaming arguments. Ben was drawn to thoughtful discussions, IPA, and artisanal cheeses. (139-40)
The defense challenge
“Baby, no one else is going to take care of Kelly Wilson. She’s alone in the world. Her parents don’t have the capacity to understand the trouble she’s in. She cannot help herself. She cannot aid in her own defense, and no one cares. Not the police. Not the investigators. Not Ken Coin.” Rusty reached out to Sam. His nicotine-stained fingertips brushed the sleeve of her blouse. “They’re going to kill her. They are going to jam a needle in her arm, and they are going to end that eighteen-year-old girl’s life.” (260)
After Sam’s young ordeal
Sam had always worked so hard to hide the things that were wrong with her, but you did not have to do more than study her for a few minutes to notice the peculiarities. Her posture, always too stiff. The way she walked with her arms tight to her sides rather than letting them swing freely. The way she held her head at an angle, always wary of her blindside. Then there was her precise, maddeningly didactic way of speaking. Sam’s tone had always been sharp, but after being shot, it was as if every word was folded around the corner of a straight edge. Sometimes, you could hear a hesitation as she searched for the correct word. More rarely, you heard the sound of her breath as she pushed out sound, using her diaphragm the way the speech pathologist had trained her. (423)
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