Title: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Contemporary, Suspense, Mystery
Length: 320 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss
Summary:
A gripping mystery about a woman who thinks she’s found the love of her life—until he disappears.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles 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 federal 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. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.
Review:
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave is an engrossing mystery.
Hannah Hall and her husband Owen Michaels live with his sixteen-year-old daughter Bailey on a floating house in Sausalito. Their marriage is happy but her relationship with her step-daughter is fraught. One day while Owen is at work, Hannah receives an unnerving note from Owen in which he says nothing more than “protect her”. She immediately knows he is referring to Bailey, but she has no clue what she needs protecting from. Her fear continues to increase after US Marshall Gray Bradford and later, two FBI agents show up asking her where Owen is. That is a question she has been frantically trying to answer as her phone calls to him go to voicemail. Unable to understand what is going on, Hannah deduces the one place she might learn the truth about her husband. With Bailey in tow, they hope to get a head start in unearthing the secrets Owen has been keeping.
Hannah and Owen met by chance and immediately begin to fall for one another. The initial obstacle to overcome is distance: she lives in New York while Owen and Baily live in California. Luckily, Hannah’s furniture making business is easy to relocate, so she readily moves across the country and marries the man of her dreams. Despite her inability to break through Bailey’s defenses, Hannah and Owen are blissfully happy and looking forward to a long marriage together. But that all changes once Hannah realizes everything she knows about her husband might be nothing but a lie.
In order to understand what is going on, she and Bailey travel to the place Hannah believes might provide answers about her husband’s past. They try to fly below the radar as they track down the slimmest of leads in order to try to find out his true identity. With Bailey’s hazy memories guiding them, Hannah thinks they are on the right track. But is she prepared for what they might unearth? And will she figure out a way to honor Owen’s wishes to keep Bailey safe once Hannah knows what she is protecting her stepdaughter from?
The Last Thing He Told Me is an incredibly fast-paced and engaging mystery. The storyline is completely captivating with clever twists and turns. Hannah and Bailey are at first uneasy partners in their quest for answers. Flashbacks provide fascinating glimpses of Hannah and Owen’s courtship and marriage. With a great deal of tension, Laura Dave brings this suspense-laden mystery to a bittersweet conclusion.
