Dead Daughters by Tim Meyer
My Rating: 5 stars
When Dead Daughters opens, we meet Drew Lowery on his birthday. His wife, Eve, has thrown him a surprise party. As the party ends, he looks in the mailbox. Among the junk mail and bills is an envelope with no stamp or address, and inside that envelope is a polaroid of his murdered daughter. Only, it can’t be her; she’s sleeping in her bedroom. When Drew and Eve rush to check on their daughter, they find her exactly where she should be. When the police don’t offer much help, Drew knows he has to figure out what is happening and who is threatening his family.
That’s it. That’s all I’m giving of the plot. I will say that as Drew investigates and starts becoming more and more paranoid, so did I. I began to suspect everyone. Tim Meyer wrote such a good thriller/mystery that at one point, I was sure I knew what was happening and praised myself for being a smart boy and solving the mystery. But, I wasn’t a smart boy, and the mystery was so much more complex and interesting than my good brain could have fathomed.
Writing-wise, Tim Meyer, excels. The characters in this book are believable and made me care about their fates. I deeply sympathized with Drew, being a dad to a toddler, I cannot imagine the feeling of helplessness one would feel getting that picture in the mail. The descriptions of violence are not over the top but still graphic enough to be chilling. And as I referenced above, the through-line of paranoia is superb, Drew doesn’t know who to be afraid of and so neither does the reader. Everyone is a suspect.
If you’re looking for a horror-thriller, you need to look no further than Dead Daughters. This book is going to be in the mix for my favorite books of the year. Dead Daughters makes my 8th book by Tim Meyer and I honestly believe that it’s his best work. 5 stars. All day long, 5 stars.
