Side by Side Review: DEAD DAUGHTERS by Tim Meyer

Matt's Review:

When Dead Daughters opens, we meet Drew Lowery on his birthday. His wife, Eve, has thrown him a surprise party. As the party ends, he looks in the mailbox. Among the junk mail and bills is an envelope with no stamp or address, and inside that envelope is a polaroid of his murdered daughter. Only, it can’t be her; she’s sleeping in her bedroom. When Drew and Eve rush to check on their daughter, they find her exactly where she should be. When the police don’t offer much help, Drew knows he has to figure out what is happening and who is threatening his family. 

That’s it. That’s all I’m giving of the plot. I will say that as Drew investigates and starts becoming more and more paranoid, so did I. I began to suspect everyone. Tim Meyer wrote such a good thriller/mystery that at one point, I was sure I knew what was happening and praised myself for being a smart boy and solving the mystery. But, I wasn’t a smart boy, and the mystery was so much more complex and interesting than my good brain could have fathomed.

Writing-wise, Tim Meyer, excels. The characters in this book are believable and made me care about their fates. I deeply sympathized with Drew, being a dad to a toddler, I cannot imagine the feeling of helplessness one would feel getting that picture in the mail. The descriptions of violence are not over the top but still graphic enough to be chilling. And as I referenced above, the throughline of paranoia is superb, Drew doesn’t know who to be afraid of and so neither does the reader. Everyone is a suspect.

If you’re looking for a horror-thriller, you need to look no further than Dead Daughters. This book is going to be in the mix for my favorite books of the year. Dead Daughters makes my 8th book by Tim Meyer and I honestly believe that it’s his best work.  5 stars. All day long, 5 stars.

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John's Review

Some time ago on social media, one of my favorite publishers made an announcement with an author who I’ve enjoyed reading, but I’m ashamed to say, still have much of his work on my back catalog. That author is Tim Meyer, and Dead Daughters is the masterwork that this publisher and author duo have released upon us. 

Drew Lowery is living the proverbial American Dream, that is, until one day his life is turned upside down and he’s living every parent's nightmare. To make matters worse, the cops can’t figure out what’s going on and Drew must take matters into his own hands before it’s too late. I’m being vague for a reason here, I didn’t even want to reiterate what’s on the back cover of this. I don’t want to potentially spoil a single thing.

What I do feel confident in telling you is that of the works I’ve read from Meyer, this is not only my favorite, but it’s also the best written. Everything flows perfectly. The story moves buttery-smooth, the characters are well developed and the first person narrative keeps you absolutely engaged in the book. I blew through the last 150 pages of this book and when I finished reading it all I could think of is how could I possibly pick up another book after that.

When the book came to its white-knuckled conclusion, I was absolutely satisfied. There were a few times I thought that Tim had shown his hand too early and I knew what was going on, turns out I’m an idiot and was completely wrong. Or maybe I’m not an idiot, Tim’s just a genius. Regardless of the state of my mental faculties, YOU’RE the dummy if you pass this one up.

5/5

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