The Last Thing He Told Me
by Laura Dave
I am writing this while sleep deprived, guzzling a cold brew, having stayed up all night reading. At some point I remember my husband telling me he was going to bed and me telling him I’d be right up. The next time I looked up I had finished The Last Thing He Told Me and, aside from my reading light, the house was pitch dark.
The Last Thing He Told Me is an excellently plotted psychological thriller, but unlike many books in that genre it has no violence, gore or abuse. It’s a fascinating book, but not a dark one, and I think it will appeal to a lot of readers who want to wade into the genre without worrying about potentially upsetting themes.
When Hannah Hall marries single dad Owen, she struggles to connect to his distant teenage daughter, Bailey. Two years after their wedding, Owen fails to come home from work and stops answering his phone. Hannah learns the tech start up he’s been working at, The Shop, has been raided by the FBI for fraud after lying about their product and cheating investors out of billions of dollars. Owen’s boss has been arrested, and Owen himself has vanished after leaving Hannah a note that reads, “protect her.”
Hannah begins searching for her husband, only to discover along the way that he was lying about his past. Bailey, traumatized by her father’s disappearance, joins Hannah in the search and realizes that memories from her early childhood don’t gel with the stories her father has told her.
A big part of this book is Hannah and Bailey coming together as a family in order to solve the mystery of Owen’s disappearance. Bailey is very much sixteen, sometimes overtly hostile to Hannah, sometimes desperately needing to be comforted by her. Watching their relationship grow from a place of uncertainty to love was wonderful to read about.
Plenty of psychological thrillers have the theme of “I don’t know who I married,” and this is no exception. However, while the answer to that question is often “a total monster” in other books, that’s not the case here. I don’t want to spoil the mystery for anyone, but while he is guilty of deception and gaslighting, Owen is not a serial killer. In fact the twist at the end of this book is bittersweet, poignant, and deeply satisfying.
If you want a thriller that will keep you reading all night without any violence or scariness, this is the book for you. It’s an engaging mystery, and a story of two women bonding amid a crisis, but it is never bleak.
– Elyse
We all have stories we never tell.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her.
Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered; as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss; as a US Marshal and FBI agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.
Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth, together. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they are also building a new future. One neither Hannah nor Bailey could have anticipated.
Mystery/Thriller
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Brandi Reeds’ TRESPASSING has a nearly identical set-up to THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME (and no serial killer ending!) for those looking for something similar sans gore. I really enjoyed it.