Book Review: The Perfect Daughter

Synopsis:

Penny Francone is just sixteen years old. But she’s a murderer. As far as the authorities are concerned, her guilt is beyond doubt because she was found alone in the apartment of the victim — her birth mother, Rachel Boyd — covered in blood, holding the murder weapon. The victim’s secret relationship with Penny provides the perfect motive.

All a jury needs to decide now is where Penny will serve her sentence. Will she receive a life sentence and be incarcerated in a maximum-security prison? Or will her lawyer successfully argue that she should be found not guilty by reason of insanity?

Penny is Grace Francone’s perfect adopted daughter. When she was abandoned by Rachel at the age of four, Grace knew immediately and convinced Arthur, her beloved husband, that Penny should become part of their family. Grace was already reeling from Arthur’s sudden death a few years ago which required her to take over running the family business. She never thought she’d see the day when she would be on her knees, grateful that Massachusetts does not impose the death penalty.

As Penny awaits trial in a state mental hospital, she is treated by Dr. Mitchell McHugh, a psychiatrist battling his own demons. Grace’s determination to understand why her daughter would commit such a heinous crime fuels Mitch’s resolve to properly diagnose Penny and help the Francone family.

Together, they search for the truth about Penny. And they discover a shocking hidden history of secrets, lies, and betrayals that threatens to consume them all.

Is she Ruby?
Is she Chloe?
Is she Eve?
Is she Penny?

Or is she fooling everyone?

Review:

D.J. Palmer is the author of several critically acclaimed suspense novels, including Saving Meghan and The New Husband. The Perfect Daughter is his most complex and ambitious book to date, inspired by his interest in writing a book about dissociative identity disorder (formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder). Palmer admits it was the hardest to write. But his efforts paid off, because it’s a compulsive mystery centered around one central question: Did sixteen-year-old Penny Francone murder Rachel, her birth mother? Palmer also examines the delivery of mental health treatment in America, particularly within the criminal justice system, as well as family dynamics, and forgiveness.

The story begins with Grace Francone finding a police detective on her doorstep, informing her that her adopted daughter, Penny, is in police custody. She was discovered in Rachel’s apartment, holding the murder weapon and covered in blood. The police believe it is a proverbial open-and-shut case.

Of course, things prove not to be that simple.

Grace convinced her late husband, Arthur, that Penny should become part of their family when she was abandoned in a park at the age of four. Penny was a sweet child, but her transition into the family was complicated by the reactions of the Francones’ two older boys, Jack and Ryan. Indeed, interspersed between chapters told in the third-person from the viewpoints of Grace and Dr. McHugh is a first-person narrative from Jack addressed to Penny. He explains that he is working on a film project at Emerson University detailing his sister’s case, and recounts his experiences growing up with Penny. He makes clear that he believes Penny is a murderer, explaining that why she killed is the only thing that matters to him. The narrative provides insight into the familial relationships and Grace’s fierce struggle to ensure Penny assimilated into the Francone family. Ryan, who decided to forego college after his father’s death in order to help Grace run the family business — Big Frank’s Pizza — and ensure that Jack could pursue his studies, is angry and resentful toward Penny. He blames her for their father’s death, and does not want to participate in efforts to mount an adequate defense for his younger sister, stressed because the business is failing and the family stands on a financial precipice.

Shortly after the Francones adopted Penny, it became apparent that the little girl either had an extremely vivid imagination . . . or something was amiss. One day she suddenly began speaking with an English accent, using terminology not employed by Americans, and insisting that her name was Eve. The Francones played along. But other more disturbing events eventually led to a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID), a topic about which Palmer did extensive research in order to convincingly depict the story. He learned that mental health professionals lack consensus about the condition and it is frequently misdiagnosed as depression or anxiety. It is believed that DID is an extreme coping mechanism employed by very young victims of trauma that causes the mind to fragment its emerging personality into different personas. In that way, the pain associated with the trauma experienced is deeply hidden in the subconscious mind. Hence the old terminology, multiple personality disorder, is inaccurate because a single personality splinters. The resultant alternate personas exist to protect the core persona from the truth. It is believed that the various alters either do not know or do not remember what transpires when they are not presenting as the core persona.

In my mind it was the perfect situation and she was the perfect daughter. . . . None of us are perfect, but she was perfect for me. ~~ Grace Francone

Palmer used what he learned to credibly portray the conflicting opinions of Penny’s prior psychiatrist, Dr. Palumbo, and Dr. Mitchell McHugh, who has just started working at Edgewater State Hospital. It’s a definite step down for a physician who formerly practiced at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. But Mitch has to be grateful that he still has a medical license after his failure to practice what he preached to all of his patients resulted in his own treatment with Physician Health Services, monitored and supported for his depression and prescription drug addiction. He is also dealing with his son’s issues. But he has given himself one year to redeem himself professionally and, hopefully, re-establish his private practice. Now he finds himself handling the challenging case of Penny Francone that will require him to formulate his own diagnosis and, ultimately, testify about his conclusions. Dr. Palumbo did not believe in DID and, therefore, concluded that Penny could not be suffering from it. Rather, he found her to be manipulative, clever . . . and dangerous. Palmer says he took care to understand the myths and misconceptions about DID and “portray the symptoms, the impact on the patient and loved ones, and the treatment as accurately as possible” in order to dispel those misunderstandings. He “prioritized portraying the character with DID as true to life as possible.”

In addition to Eve, Grace is aware that Penny has at least two other personas: Chloe is a perfectionist while Eve is the darkest, hardest persona, exhibiting bravado that Penny does not possess. It is Eve who has been confined to Edgewater for nearly a year and a half, protecting Penny and the others from the horror of being accused of murder and imprisoned in a psychiatric facility. Grace acknowledges that Penny would not survive in Edgewater and Jack describes the pain of losing the sweet sister he came to love: “It feels a bit like you abandoned us, ran away, leaving us with the harshest, cruelest, most caustic and hard to handle of all of your alters. You left us with Eve.”

Palmer believably explores Grace’s angst as she fights to save the daughter she always wanted. She and Arthur discussed the idea of having another child, but decided to be happy with their two boys. Then fate intervened when Penny was abandoned. Grace believed Penny was the perfect daughter she had always wanted, and they could provide Penny with the stable home she so desperately needed. But as time passed, and Penny’s problems worsened, Grace refused to give up on her . . . and will not do so now. The boys, Jack and Ryan, overcame their resentment and grew to love Penny, but Palmer illustrates the tensions the family felt when Penny’s issues came to light, and Grace focused more and more of her energy on Penny. Things became particularly strained after Arthur’s sudden death and now Grace struggles to provide Penny the support she needs, as well as a defense. The experienced criminal defense attorney she happens upon and eventually retains to represent Grace, Greg Navarro, explains that Penny’s legal challenges may be insurmountable. And a legal victory will not be cause for celebration. Greg will have to have to convince the court that Penny has DID and make the case that one of her alters committed the crime, which explains why she has no memory of killing Rachel. But the best possible outcome — a ruling that Penny is not guilty by reason of insanity — will still result in her being hospitalized for years, probably receiving suboptimal, if any, treatment in a state-operated facility. Undaunted, Grace refuses to believe that Penny or any of her alters are guilty, insisting that the police should be looking for the real murderer.

The Perfect Daughter is an impressively clever, intricately-plotted mystery replete with shocking revelations and surprising plot twists that keep the story moving at a steady, unrelenting pace. Palmer has crafted credible, empathetic characters — Grace, the dedicated mother who unwaveringly believes in her precious daughter’s innocence, chief among them. She refuses to see Penny as anything other than a victim of her early childhood experiences, pushing those around her to join her in her crusade to save the child she so urgently wanted. Jack and Ryan, as noted, have complicated, conflicting feelings about their sister, based upon their unique experiences with her and the way her entrance into their family served as the catalyst that tore it apart. Mitch is the highly skilled physician who must rise to the challenge of keeping his patient’s best interests at the forefront and base his diagnosis on science, not emotion. And at the center of it all is Penny, the girl whose psyche may have shattered as a result of what she suffered as a young child. She is an absolutely fascinating character and Palmer’s admitted favorite. He keeps readers guessing about whether she has DID and if she is a killer until the book’s explosive conclusion that will leave many readers with their jaws on the floor as Palmer discloses secrets, lies, and an utterly infuriating betrayal, And what will be the emotional aftermath of those revelations? Once the truth is known, will the Francone family stand together? Will Penny’s alters ever be integrated? Can she hope to lead a healthy, productive life? Or will she be consigned to a lifetime of being institutionalized or, worse, incarcerated?

The Perfect Daughter is an intense, gripping, and very entertaining thriller that proves Palmer’s story-telling prowess.