The family ties that bind can also strangle and suffocate, as it turns out, in Lisa Gardner’s 1999 novel, The Other Daughter. Like Karin Slaughter before her, Gardner is an author name I’ve heard before, but I’d never read any of her books until now. While I thought The Other Daughter had a slow start, once it revved up, I was fully hooked.
In the case of this story, the “ties that bind” seem to be largely one of wealth, trying to mask everything simmering unhealthily underneath. We first learn about Russell Lee Holmes, a notorious serial killer and of six children, no less. He’s executed by the state of Texas in 1977 for his crimes. At the same time, a 9-year-old girl mysteriously appears in a Boston hospital. She’s later adopted by the Stokes family consisting of Dr. Harper Stokes, renowned cardiothoracic surgeon (and who happened to be on duty at the hospital when the girl appeared); his wife Patricia, a former beauty queen and alcoholic; and older brother, Brian, full of piss and vinegar and secretly gay because he knows his dad won’t approve. That 9-year-old girl is Melanie Stokes, and fast-forward 20 years later, she loves her adopted family and her life as an event planner. The reason Melanie is considered the “other daughter” is because the Stokes’ other daughter, 4-year-old Meagan, was kidnapped and killed by Russell Lee Holmes, as the story goes. They lost one daughter tragically and serendipitously gained another. Perhaps too serendipitously …
Indeed, because two decades after the fact, a reporter (last name Digger, get it?) starts coming around asking questions about Melanie’s birth parents, setting everything in motion. The short allegation is two-fold: Melanie is Russell Lee Holmes’ daughter, and for whatever reason, the Stokes’ took in the daughter of the man who killed their other daughter; and because of that, in addition to other secrets, the Stokes family is seedier and darker than Melanie realizes. How well does she actually know her adopted family? Not well at all, as it turns out.
Enter David Riggs, who pretends to be a waiter at one of the Stokes’ rich gatherings. He’s actually an FBI agent working in the healthcare fraud division. The allegation leading to his involvement is that Dr. Stokes is making $6,000 a pop off of unnecessary pacemaker surgeries with the help of an anesthesiologist (who, by the way, in one of the bigger twists at the end of the novel, is the child of Holmes, not Melanie). You see, the thing about Dr. Stokes is that he will do anything to maintain the rich lifestyle his family lives and to prove he’s better than the underwhelming life he came from, even if that means surgically implanting pacemakers in patients who don’t need it Even if that means — as David and Melanie suspect — killing his own daughter for the $1 million insurance payout and somehow convincing, through his longtime friend and fixer, Jamie, to convince Russell Lee Holmes to confess to the murder, despite no actual evidence connecting him to it and the kidnapping, ransom, and killing not fitting his MO.
And yes, I said “David and Melanie” because naturally, they become an item because it couldn’t be a book with a man and a woman as the two protagonists unraveling and solving the mystery without them falling in love (over the span of about a month). I jest, but it is a trope that is a bit tired! To be fair, maybe it wasn’t as much of a trope yet in 1999 when the book was written.
The overarching issue, too, is that someone is pulling the strings of everyone involved, as if daring the Stokes family to reveal the secrets they’ve kept hidden for 25 years. We learn that Jamie, the fixer and Melanie’s “godfather,” is actually her real father because he had an affair with Patricia. Instead of murdering Meagan, they faked her death for the insurance payout, and then five years later, tied her “death” to Holmes and Dr. Stokes “adopted” her back into the family. But Jamie was tired of keeping that secret. (So, yeah, it also goes without saying that the pacemaker allegation is true.) Dr. Stokes tried pushing back though by hiring one of Jamie’s hitman to kill the reporter and Melanie, but David thwarted at least the latter half of that plan.
Everything falls apart, all the “plates” Dr. Stokes had in the air are coming down — Patricia finally comes out of her slumber and leaves him, Brian effectively hates him and realizes he needs to step up and protect Melanie, and even Melanie ran away from home — and they all meet back up in Texas where it all began. At that point, Harper tries to kill Melanie himself, but Jamie dives in front of her to take the bullet. He dies. But in that moment, all the truths come out. Harper was a greedy and jealous man, willing to fake the kidnapping and death of Melanie/Meagan because she wasn’t his real daughter, and then willing to kill her himself to keep that conspiracy from coming to life. In the end, Dr. Stokes was right that he never “harmed” Meagan in the literal sense, but he definitely harmed her and his family in an emotional and psychological sense.
As my first introduction to Gardner’s work, I thought she spun a fun, captivating web of family secrets and lies. She also kept me guessing, and I love to be kept guessing! I did realize about midway through that perhaps Meagan was Melanie, and therefore wasn’t dead, but I didn’t glom on to the other facts revealed later. Melanie’s arc was good, too, going from the naïve daughter because she so desperately wanted a family and to belong, to determined to figure out where she came from, even if it puts her in danger, was well-done. I also liked the David character because he didn’t fit the typical mold. For one, he’s in the white collar division of the FBI, so, he’s not used to using his gun, and for two, he has terrible arthritis, that makes him not exactly the strapping man typical of these novels.
And the best compliment I can give the book: It makes me want to read more of Gardner’s work. Mission accomplished.
Milam's Musings 