I love a good thriller. A fast-paced suspense always has me on a chokehold. But it leaves my mind the moment I’m done reading it. Rarely does a thriller novel get me to contemplate life. I don’t annotate these books, nor do I find myself going back to certain lines and paragraphs. Which is precisely why ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ was surprising.
I wanted to race through the story but had to sit back and ponder what I’d read. Laura Dave’s writing is marvelous. She says the most obvious things in an impactful manner: they feel like the thoughts at the back of your head you had been unable to articulate.
The Last Thing He Told Me starts with a disappearance. Owen Micheals, coding genius and adoring husband to Hannah Hall, vanishes on the same day that the FBI raids his company over a fraud case. He sends Hannah a note. It says ‘Protect her’. By her, Hannah knows he means her 16-year-old stepdaughter, Bailey. Bailey, in turn, gets a note asking her to listen to Hannah. She also gets a large duffel bag full of cash stuffed in her locker at school.
Hannah wants to do as Owen says because she feels he must have a good reason for running. But Bailey has never been accepting of Hannah so that makes things difficult. However, both Hannah and Bailey want answers and together they try to find out the truth. As events unfold, you see, in flashbacks, how Hannah’s past influences her choices in the present. Owen, it seems, also has a secret that he has gone to extreme lengths to protect.
Domestic thrillers generally revolve around dysfunctional families. But The Last Thing He Told Me is about a loving family whose ties are tested by unusual circumstances. That feels so refreshing. Here, one of the characters hasn’t lost his/her mind or isn’t a malicious, conniving person who has been leading a double life. The situation might be ugly and disturbing but there is a lot of good underneath it all.
Despite the twists and turns that have you biting your nails, the book actually explores what we are capable of doing for the ones we love. It’s a stunning depiction of the lengths parents often go to in order to keep their children safe.
The plot isn’t without flaws. There are things that don’t add up. You are, however, forgiving of the little glitches as you care a lot about the characters and want them to emerge unscathed. But you know they won’t and that breaks your heart a little. The ending is perhaps the most gorgeous and touching part of the book. It’s been a while since I read The Last Thing He Told Me but I’m still haunted by it.
Four stars
Fiction
The Last Thing He Told Me
Laura Dave
Published: 2021
Publisher: Viper
Pages: 306, Paperback
