4.5★s
The Serial Killer’s Daughter is the second novel by British author, Alice Hunter. When veterinarian Jenny Johnson wakes in the early hours of Wednesday morning on her kitchen floor, cold and dirty, her pyjamas stained with wet earth, mud embedded under her nails, she knows she has had another blackout, and wonders just what she has been doing out there. She manages to hide it from her family, although her husband, Mark knows something’s up.

More disturbing, though, is the black bin bag she spots near the front steps, containing the mutilated body of a cat, with an extra touch that has her immediately wondering who, from the life she’s tried so hard to leave behind, has found her.

After a busy day at her vet practice, Mark mentions the news that has rocked their village of Coleton Combe: Olivia Edwards is missing, believed abducted on her walk home from the local pub the previous evening.

He’s keeping to himself the worry that Jenny might be involved, because he has, once before, failed to contain her sleep-walking, and tracked her down to Olivia’s front garden, a rock in her hand. His affair with Olivia is still a sore point between them.

Between the police questioning everyone in the village, speculation and gossip amongst the school mums, villagers and clinic staff, and more bin bags with grisly contents, Jenny’s stress levels are sky high, a situation that results in more blackouts, more sleepwalking, more worry about what she might have done, especially when the situation begins to resemble something she has experienced before.

It gradually becomes clear that neither of Mark nor Jenny has been entirely honest about their past: Mark has failed to mention impulsive acts following excess alcohol intake; Jenny has refused to talk about her family, never mentioning her manipulative, controlling mother or her serial killer father.

Most of the story is told through a dual narrative carried by Mark and Jenny; additional facts are provided by recalled conversations between a father and daughter, and extracts from a true crime book and commentary from the anonymous author about interactions with the book’s subject.

The reader may initially wonder just how reliable a narrator Jenny is. Certainly, the second-guessing she engages in about her own actions has strong foundations, and her blackouts and nocturnal activity make her the ideal subject for gaslighting.

There are plenty of distractions, red herrings and lots of tension to keep the reader guessing and the pages turning right up to the nail-biting climax. The blurb is slightly misleading and the resolution needs some suspension of disbelief, but still an excellent crime thriller.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Avon Books UK.