Her Father's Daughter

By: T. M. Dunn

Narrated by: Cara Swingline, David Bendena

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. 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 is perfect for fans of Oyinkan Braithwaite and Karen Dionne.

©2023 T. M. Dunn (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Enough layers to keep it interesting

As I noted in the headling for my review, there were enough layers to keep it interesting even after it became obvious who was the serial killer. I'm not a regular reader of murder mysteries but this one keep me turning the pages, espeically since there was some depth to characters (i.e,, love interests, etc.) and the conflicts and complictions in plot line and relationships (i.e. father-dac.)ughter relationship, complicated ancestral history-issues, etc.). My only complaint (more of an observation) was that the female love interest cop friend of Linda sounded a bit too fragile and sweet to be an NYPD detective. She sounded more often like a social worker, motherly, empathetic soul. In contrast, her female, veteran NYPD supervisor was spot on with the hard boiled, street wise accent and dialogue. Also, the waitress in the diner was easy to visualize. As for the father, I had a harder time visualizing him beyond the ponytail that was mentioned. I visualized a wiry, older, scruffy (but still respectable) contractor type guy possibly with a receeding hairline. I visualized a libertarian, fiercly independent anti-authority type guy. Not sure if this was what the author intended to be visualizing. He certainly had a Dr. Jeckell/Mr. Hyde personality but I didn't get a clear view in my mind as to what (if any) physical transformations occurred (if in fact there were such transformations). All in all, a very good read that provided a break for me from my usual pattern of audio books alternating from fiction to non-fiction.

Heartfelt Creepy

I may be biased buy I do love this story! I have a thing for heartfelt creepy stories!
This story story is both.