The perilous territory of mother-daughter relationships is often explored in crime fiction, especially in psychological thrillers. This month’s Freefall by Jessica Barry tells the story of mother Maggie Carpenter whose estranged daughter, Ally, is supposedly killed in a private plane crash. As Ally’s body is not found with the plane, Maine-based Maggie sets out for Ally’s home in San Diego to try and reconnect if not with Ally herself than with the new life she has built in California. As in Freefall, in the books below mothers and daughters are trying to reconnect, protect each other, and reckon with their formative bond.
Baby Teeth, by Zoje Stage
Suzette Jensen and her husband, Alex, are overjoyed when she gives birth to a daughter they name Hanna. The action of Baby Teeth starts when Hanna is seven years old and already behaving—or misbehaving—strangely. She has no affect much of the time, just quietly observing her surroundings. But when she does act she acts out against Suzette (meanwhile, with her father Hanna is docile and sweet). Hanna is sullen, manipulative, and possibly just plain evil, but Suzette, estranged from her own mother, is determined to love Hanna into being a better person. Can a mother’s love change a bad seed into a good kid?
Pieces of Her, by Karin Slaughter
Andrea has always been close to her mother, Laura. Laura has raised Andrea in the idyllic community of Belle Isle, a sleepy beach town they both adore. Andrea thinks she knows everything about her mother until a trip to the mall ends up in violence, and it turns out Laura had a whole other life before she moved to Belle Isle and had Andrea. She’s been hiding her true identity for 30 years and won’t cooperate with the police or confess. So Andrea must piece together her mother’s past in the hopes of salvaging their present.
Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain
Is there a more ungrateful child in all of fiction than Veda Pierce? In Cain’s noir masterpiece Mildred Pierce is an ambitious woman determined to make a better life for herself and her daughter, the aforementioned Veda. Mildred goes without so that Veda can have the best of everything, and she tries to give Veda the kind of childhood Mildred wished she had. As Veda grows up, however, she cruelly and expertly manipulates and deceives her mother, ultimately threatening the life Mildred has sacrificed so much to build.
Then She was Gone, by Lisa Jewell
Laurel Mack has three children, the youngest of which is Ellie. Ellie is an ideal daughter beloved by all, the kind of teenager who charms both her peers and the adults around her. Teenaged Ellie’s planning a post-exam vacation with her boyfriend when she disappears. Laurel’s marriage does not survive the aftermath of losing Ellie, and years go by until she feels ready to date again. When she meets the affable Floyd at a café Laurel allows herself to be drawn into a new relationship. Floyd has two daughters, and the younger one, Poppy, reminds Laurel so much of Ellie it’s uncanny. Poppy forces Laurel to delve into Ellie’s disappearance again: did she run away, as the police concluded, or did something far more sinister happen to her?
The Blank Wall, by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Holding’s 1947 study of maternal love takes place stateside during World War 2. A suburban wife and mother is holding down the home front, carefully stretching her rations and managing her father and her two children with the help of her devoted housekeeper. Yet something is amiss: the teenage daughter in the family is discovered to be consorting with artists and other undesirables in the city. It’s not long before our heroine is facing a blackmail threat which would ruin her daughter’s reputation. Can the mother get and keep her wayward daughter out of trouble?
Pretty Baby, by Mary Kubica
Mary Kubica is the queen of fertility noir, a specialist in examining the bond between mother and infant. In Pretty Baby, Heidi Wood spots a homeless teenager with an infant daughter during her wintery Chicago commute. Concerned about both the girl and the baby’s health, she brings them home to the apartment she shares with her husband and teenage daughter. Though her family is used to Heidi helping strays and outcasts, they are rightly suspicious of the young mother and daughter who slowly take over both their home and Heidi’s attention.
The Lost Ones, by Sheena Kamal
The first book in Canadian Kamal’s Nora Watts series is a twisted story of—what else?—a missing girl. Watts, a recovering addict and underemployed depressive, gets a call that Bonnie, the daughter she put up for adoption years before, has run away from her adoptive family. Thinking Bonnie might go looking for her birth mother, Bonnie’s adoptive father contacts Nora and asks for her help in the search for Bonnie. Watts is still dealing with her own demons after a childhood spent in foster care and her fall into addiction, but she cares enough about her daughter to try and find her, revealing parts of the past she’d rather not reckon with.
Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little
Janie Jenkins is young, gorgeous, glamorous, and straight out of prison. A Paris Hilton-esque It girl, Jenkins was convicted of killing her equally cosmopolitan mother, known for her wealth, beauty, and multiple husbands. Released on a technicality, Janie is determined to trace her mother’s past and find her killer. The twist is that Janie has no memory of the night her mother died, so the killer she’s so doggedly chasing might be herself.
Hush Hush, by Laura Lippman
Melisandre Harris Dawes is infamous for an unspeakable crime: infanticide. In this installment of Lippman’s popular Tess Monaghan series, the private eye is charged with helping, or maybe protecting, Dawes while she films a documentary about the crime and tries to reconnect with the teenaged daughters she abandoned after her baby died. Meanwhile, Tess’s daughter has hit the terrible twos, and she’s trying to juggle motherhood and Dawes’s increasingly disturbing and complex case. Lippman’s book takes an unflinching look at motherhood in all its guises, from intense love to murderous rage.
