review: DADDY'S GIRL, Lisa Scottoline

• this edition published by Pan Macmillan 2007
• ISBN 978-0-230-01470-1
• 338 pages
• author website

Synopsis  (author website)


In Daddy’s Girl, Natalie Greco’s quiet and idyllic, if not predictable, life turns chaotic when a violent riot breaks out while she is teaching a course at the local prison. Nat rushes to give CPR to a grievously injured prison guard. Before he dies, he asks her to deliver a cryptic message with his last words: “Tell my wife, it’s under the floor.” The dying declaration plunges Nat into a nightmare.

Suddenly, the girl who has always followed the rules finds herself suspected of a brutal murder. She encounters threats to her life around every curve, from ruthless killers desperate to keep her from exposing their secret. In the meantime, she gets dangerously close to Angus, a fellow colleague, whose warmth, strength, and ponytail shake her dedication to her boyfriend. With her love life in jeopardy, her career in the balance, and her life on the line, Nat is thrown back on her resources, her intelligence, and her courage. Forced into hiding to stay alive, she sets out to save herself by deciphering the puzzle behind one man’s last words. And learns the secret behind the greatest puzzle of all — herself.

My Take

I could have sworn that I had read at least one book by Lisa Scottoline, but apparently not in the life of this blog. Here again is a book that has been sitting in my TBR for longer than I care to remember.

Natalie Greco is a law professor, the daughter of a wealthy building family, used to getting what it wants. She is asked by another professor to take part in an outreach legal studies programme in a nearby prison. While they are there the prison goes into lockdown, a guard and three inmates are killed and Nat ends up holding the guard as he dies. Then it appears that the prison authorities have decided not to reveal what really happened, and their press release does not jell with what Nat remembers.

When she tries to deliver the dying man's message to his wife it become apparent there are those who are determined to scare her off. More deaths occur and Nat goes into hiding.

I found the plot a bit mind-bending, a little incredible, coupled with the fact that Nat herself is an appalling judge of character. She also seems to me to be a little young for the academic position that she holds.

The author says at the end that the scenario is based on her own experiences in teaching the law.

My rating: 4.3