Skillfully weaving together domestic suspense, a desperate police investigation, a love affair, and a serial killer on the loose, acclaimed author T. M. Dunn’s Her Father’s Daughter makes for a raw, edgy, and hard-hitting hero’s journey into a family’s twisted secrets, perfect for fans of Oyinkan Braithwaite and Karen Dionne.
Twenty-five-year-old Linda Donovan has spent her life working for her father, Anthony, at Donovan and Daughter Exterminators in New York City. On the anniversary of her mother’s death, her father makes his annual visit to his late wife’s grave while Linda heads to a Park Avenue apartment building to work solo.
When she arrives, she finds the body of an elderly resident, partially eaten by rats. The gruesome death not only speaks poorly of the Donovans’ exterminating services—it also points to foul play. When the cops show up, they demand to speak to Linda’s father. But despite her efforts to contact him, Anthony has gone off the radar.
As he evades a possible murder charge, Linda’s father records in five notebooks—and five damning acts—the story of how he met and fell in love with her mother, a previously untold history of familial abuse, tormented souls, and true love gone terribly wrong.
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What I thought about Her Father's Daughter
In this domestic thriller that crosses over into horror at times, T. M. Dunn examines the question -- is it nature or nurture? What traits are inherited -- and can we ever get away from them?
Anthony and his daughter Linda run Donovan and Daughter Exterminators. When she makes a gruesome discovery during a job, it turns out her father is under suspicion but he's nowhere to be found.
Turns out her father has left some journals for her, explaining his life and as Linda reads them, she discovers just how far her father would go for his acting craft. It's at times horrific and definitely disturbing. The dual POV between Anthony and Linda does help to break up the descriptions of the gruesome crimes, which I appreciated. Will Linda follow in his footsteps?
As a thriller, this worked for me. Although I wasn't surprised by too much, I did like the quick read format of this and wanted to know how it was going to end. Anthony's POV was appropriately creepy and I liked Linda's POV much more.
Overall, a good story, well presented through the two points of view.
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