Sometimes a mother’s love just isn’t enough. When your adopted daughter who is perfect in your eyes is accused of the worst crime imaginable, you want to do everything you can to keep her from getting hurt, but it is out of your control. Once the authorities learn that she allegedly suffers from multiple personalities, will that make things better or worse for her? All of these thoughts are going through Grace Francone’s mind in THE PERFECT DAUGHTER, D.J. Palmer’s latest psychological thriller.

Grace is awakened by the flashing lights coming from the police squad car that is parked in front of her house. Her mind quickly goes through different scenarios, none of which are good. Her sons, Ryan and Jack, are away at college, and her 16-year-old daughter Penny is asleep in her room. However, the reality is that Penny is not at home. She took the family car and drove away. The police officer informs Grace that she needs to come down to the station, where Penny is covered in blood and has been arrested for murder. A dazed Grace grabs a change of clothes and a towel, and reaches out to the only attorney she knows, Greg Navarro.

"THE PERFECT DAUGHTER...has an ending no one will see coming. You cannot ask for anything more from a thriller!"

What alarms Grace the most is the name of the victim: Rachel Boyd, who is Penny’s birth mother. Rachel abandoned Penny at the age of four in a public park before Grace found her and eventually made her part of the family. Grace knows Penny is in big trouble, especially when she learns that Penny had been in touch with Rachel online and made threats against her.

Penny is sent to a place called Edgewater, which is not much better than prison and houses mostly those who are criminally insane. Her boys return from college for support, and Jack even decides to do a film on their ordeal. They all realize that the doctors at Edgewater will soon learn about Penny’s alter egos --- Eve, the dominant protector; Chloe, the perfectionist who strives for straight As in school; and Ruby, who speaks with a British accent that includes full terminology most likely picked up from her reading of the Harry Potter series. The doctor who initially sees Penny does not believe in dissociative disease of any kind, but thankfully he retires shortly thereafter. His replacement, Dr. Mitchell McHugh, is willing to keep an open mind, even though he is unsure about using Penny’s alters as an insanity defense once the trial begins.

We get to learn a lot about Penny, even though Eve has pretty much taken over since her incarceration. It’s no secret that her birth name is Isabella, but she prefers to be called Penny. It also becomes apparent that Ryan does not care for Penny, which would be an understatement. He blames her for not doing enough when his father died, and there is the story of a young Penny killing a cat with a rock --- even though it was mortally wounded, and she insisted she was just putting the animal out of its misery. Everyone knows what killing small animals can lead to, and Ryan has a hard time believing that Penny could be innocent of the crime for which she has been arrested.

Nevertheless, Penny is very forthcoming, and her defense team believes there may be proof that she did not commit the murder. Once the trial begins, everything comes to light, and no one will be prepared for what happens when Penny is put on the stand.

In a recent article, D.J. Palmer discussed the “what if’ in every work of fiction and how it needs to be answered by the end of the story, typically with the term that Alfred Hitchcock made famous: the MacGuffin. When they work well, great thrillers hit this mark perfectly and sometimes can take the reader’s breath away. This is precisely what we have here with THE PERFECT DAUGHTER, which has an ending no one will see coming. You cannot ask for anything more from a thriller!