Publication Date September 17, 2024
A few years ago, I read and reviewed Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me, using words like “fun,” “twisty,” and “surprising.” I noted that I would read other books by her, so I was pleased to receive a copy of her latest, The Night We Lost Him, from W&S/Marysue Rucci and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
I was expecting more of a thriller (it was described as “riveting”), but this is a mystery/family drama/romance, and the pace is NOT fast, although it starts with a bang as a man (we learn it is Liam Noone) goes over a seaside cliff to his death. Was it an accident? Suicide? The police shing it was an accident, but two of his adult children, Nora and Sam, question that and begin a search to unravel the truth, along with whatever secrets he may have been hiding for decades.
I often have trouble with multiple timelines, and I kept thinking I had gotten lost, although it turned out the story was just unfolding in a non-linear way…and sometimes I wasn’t even clear whether it was Liam or someone else. He and his high school sweetheart, Cory, go their separate ways after college and each marries someone else. Liam has children by multiple women as he marries multiple times, and frankly I kept wondering as many readers have WTH? Why are they not together, they clearly have a deep mutual love. And who the heck is Cory? None of Liam’s wives are named Cory!
Nora and her half-brother Sam search for the key to their father’s secrets, and the investigation proceeds in the present time with multiple chronology jumps back and forth as they explore the clues they begin to uncover. Nora is engaged to a man named Jack, although there is clearly still something between her and Elliott, and it isn’t clear for awhile (ever?) what that is all about. I liked Nora, especially her way of saying things like “My mother had modeled for me early on that the quickest route to unhappiness was to pay too much attention to anyone’s disapproval…”. I didn’t really understand her field of neuroarchitecture, but I enjoyed the discussions of the family’s various hotel sites, especially those along the California coast, where I live. I also liked the lesson about loyalty, that it “…doesn’t trump love, not in the end.”
The mystery is solved off the page, which will likely bother some readers, I felt like it fit the story, and I will recommend it to others, particularly since I kept thinking any problems with the story as I went along were due to my own inattention rather than any lack of skill or storytelling by MsDave. Overall, a good read. Four stars.