The Perfect Daughter
A Novel
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A thriller that explores the truth or lies behind a teenage girl's multiple personality disorder, from D.J. Palmer, the author of The New Husband.
Meet Ruby, who speaks with a British accent.
Then there’s Chloe, a perfectionist who strives for straight A’s in school.
And along comes Eve, who is spiteful and vicious.
All of them live inside Penny…
Or do they?
Penny Francone, age sixteen, is a murderer. Her guilt is beyond doubt: she was found alone in the victim’s apartment, covered in blood, holding the murder weapon. The victim’s identity and her secret relationship to Penny give Penny the perfect motive, sealing the deal. All the jury needs to decide now is where Penny will serve out her sentence. Will she be found not guilty by reason of insanity, as her lawyer intends to argue? Or will she get a life sentence in a maximum-security prison?
Already reeling from tragedy after the sudden passing of her beloved husband a few years before, now Grace is on her knees, grateful that Massachusetts doesn't allow the death penalty.
As Penny awaits trial in a state mental hospital, she is treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling demons of his own. Grace’s determination to understand the why behind her daughter’s terrible crime fuels Mitch’s resolve to help the Francone family. Together, they set out in search of the truth about Penny, but discover instead a shocking hidden history of secrets, lies, and betrayals that threatens to consume them all.
The perfect daughter. Is she fooling them all?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A tenacious, loving mother fights to prove her daughter is innocent of murder in this well-crafted psychological thriller from Palmer (The New Husband). Grace Francone knows that her 16-year-old daughter, Penny, has dissociative identity disorder, but Penny's multiple personalities have never been violent. Adopted by the Francones after she was found alone at age four in a deserted park near their Swampscott, Mass., home, Penny is accused of murdering her biological mother, with whom she recently reconnected. The evidence against her is overwhelming—she was covered in the victim's blood, and her fingerprints are on the murder weapon. While Penny awaits trial in a decaying state hospital, she's treated by a compassionate psychiatrist, who struggles with his own mental problems. Palmer digs into the fraught family dynamics of the Francone household, where Penny was embraced by one brother, Jack, and resented by the other brother, Ryan. Alternating points of view between Grace and Jack, a college filmmaker, ratchet up the suspense. Palmer's take on a complex psychological disorder will keep readers in its grip. Agents: Meg Ruley and Rebecca Scherer, Jane Rotrosen Agency.
