In keeping with this month’s theme, I reviewed, The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave. My son, Ian, suggested it to me.
It’s always exciting when one of my sons mentions a book they enjoyed.
After the thousands of hours, I spent reading to them when they were little and preaching the joys of reading into their adult years, it’s nice to know they were listening.
Laura Dave is a New York Times Bestselling author. Her fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, The New York Observer, ESPN, Redbook, and The Huffington Post. The rights to three of her novels have been optioned for film or television.
The Last Thing He Told Me is now a limited series on Apple TV+ starring Jennifer Garner, and I’m anxious to see what if any changes they made to the plot. Jennifer Garner is one of my favorite actresses, so that’s a plus, but always read the book first if you can because writers can add in so much more detail about their characters’ inner motivations.
The Last Thing He Told Me fits perfectly into our June theme of being daring.
Hannah, the main character, must summon the courage to do things she never imagined.
Hannah never has a high-speed chase, fires a gun, or hangs perilously from the ledge of a skyscraper or a mountain her actions are daring, she summons the courage to confront someone’s secret past.
After marrying Owen, a widower with a teenage daughter named Bailey, and moving to Sausalito, Hannah struggles to fit into the family dynamic. Bailey and her father have been a twosome for as long as Bailey can remember, and she likes it that way.
Owen is a coder for a software company. When he mysteriously disappears after his boss Avett is arrested for fraud, his only message to Hannah is “protect her.” His message to Bailey is a duffel bag stuffed with cash. Could Owen be part of Avett’s scheme to deceive their investors that the new app worked? His disappearance and the money make it seem likely.
A visit from the FBI doesn’t seem out of place, but when a Texas Ranger shows up at Hannah’s door, warning bells start to go off. The ranger warns Hannah to find a good lawyer and sit tight, but Hannah starts to remember little inconsistencies in Owen’s recollections of his past. He supposedly went to Princeton, but there are no records of him there and a man they met during a chance encounter remembers him from a high school thousands of miles away from where he supposedly went. It’s the little things that add up and Hannah begins to realize the only way to “protect” her stepdaughter is to find out as much as she can about Owen.
A call to Hannah’s ex-fiancé, a New York attorney, reveals that Owen and his daughter didn’t exist before they supposedly moved from Seattle to Sausalito after his wife’s tragic death.
Texas seems the likely place to start and Hannah has to rely on a surly teenager’s early memories to guide them. To succeed, Hannah and Bailey must learn to trust each other, and Hannah must question everything she thought she knew about the man she married. How far is she willing to go to honor their last communication? Can she protect Bailey, or will her attempts push them farther apart?
At times I found myself questioning the twists and turns of the story, but Dave’s writing is strong and persuasive. I wanted to find out the “who, what, where, and why.” The ending is unexpected and will stay with you.
Other Books by Laura Dave:
London is the Best City in America (2006)
The Divorce Party (2008)
The First Husband (2011)
Eight Hundred Grapes (2015)
Hello Sunshine (2017)
Photo of Laura Dave:
https://www.bookreporter.com/authors/laura-dave
Image of book jacket taken from author’s website with no intention of copyright infringement, https://lauradave.com/