Laura Dave has written several novels, but TBH I’d never heard of her before I got an advance copy of her latest, The Last Thing He Told Me, from Simon & Schuster and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. The premise sounded like it had the potential to be either ho-hum or terrific: husband disappears, woman left behind begins investigating his disappearance, spends a few hundred pages in danger…
In this fun, twisty, and surprising novel, a woman named Hannah Hall finds a cryptic note from her husband of just one year, Owen Michaels, saying only “Protect her.” Hannah assumes it must refer to her teenaged stepdaughter Bailey. Owen’s wife was tragically killed when Bailey was a small child, and Bailey isn’t thrilled to have a new stepmother. Hannah is wanting to get closer, but she is treading lightly: “I recognize in her that thing that happens when you lose your mother. My mother left by choice, Bailey’s by tragedy, but it leaves a similar imprint on you either way.”
Hannah happens to hear on the news that the office where her husband works as a tech wizard has been raided by the FBI, with his boss arrested on financial fraud charges, and indictments of other corporate officers to come. Including Owen? Is that why he disappeared? Hannah is understandably freaked out, and a duffel bag full of cash left for Bailey, ostensibly from Owen, is just one of several things that Hannah finds totally inexplicable. Before long, she realizes Owen isn’t who he told her he was…and may not be who Bailey thought he was either.
Together, Hannah and Bailey start putting together pieces of the puzzle, trying to figure out Owen’s past — and their future. I admit I read this quickly, partly because it was so compelling, I just HAD to keep reading. And lately, it seems like I have read several books where I just wasn’t wild about the end…but I am not able to articulate what exactly the author might have done differently that would not have been either contrived or just weird. This is another one of those: wasn’t wild about the ending, but damned if I can suggest a better one. The ending was a bit of a surprise, and there is one tiny thing that bugged me enough to drop it from 5 stars to 4, but overall this is a solid book, and I look forward to reading more from this author.