A weekend in a good chair with a suspense novel about family

Some weeks call for a book that holds your attention without asking you to leave the comfortable chair. This is a suspense novel set in a household that comes apart without warning, and it is as much about a woman and her stepdaughter as it is about a mystery. It offers a fast evening or two, with real warmth underneath the tension.

The Last Thing He Told Me is a suspense novel by Laura Dave, in the Scribner paperback of March 2023, 336 pages. Its setup is simple and unsettling. Hannah Hall has been married to Owen Michaels for a year when he vanishes. Before he goes, he gets a note to her with two words on it: Protect her. Hannah knows at once that it means Bailey, Owen’s daughter, who is sixteen, lost her mother as a child, and wants nothing to do with a new stepmother. Then the calls to Owen go unanswered, his boss is arrested by the FBI, and a US marshal and federal agents arrive at Hannah’s home in Sausalito. She begins to understand that her husband was not who he said he was.

The book runs on two tracks. One is the mystery of who Owen really is and why he left, and the description promises plenty of twists along the way. The other is quieter: two people with every reason to keep their distance are pushed into working together, and Bailey may hold the key to the puzzle. As they assemble the pieces of Owen’s past, they are also building a future neither expected. Reviewers point to the same questions under the plot. Riley Sager says it takes on trust, marriage and what makes a family, and BookPage notes that the situation is disturbing but almost everyone in it is decent at heart, so the suspense unnerves and then reassures.

This is a book for a reader who wants to be absorbed without being frightened. The trouble in it is real, but the tone leans toward care rather than menace, and Vogue described it as light and bright despite its edgy plot. It tends to matter most to readers in a season of their own questions about trust, or those who live in or near a blended family, where closeness has to be built rather than assumed. It also suits anyone with a free weekend and a good chair. That last part is taste, not measurement, and a reader who wants a bleak, cold thriller may find it too gentle.

As a read, it is a mid length paperback with a fast pace. The description promises breakneck pacing, and the Associated Press calls it a page turner. The listing places it in a Hannah Hall series. It was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, and the description says it has sold more than 5 million copies and been adapted as an Apple TV+ series starring Jennifer Garner. Expect to finish it in a few sittings rather than over a slow month.

What stays after the last page is the idea the book keeps returning to: that a family is something people can choose to make, even from a difficult start. If a calm evening and a story with some heart beneath its tension is what you are after, this is a reasonable choice for now.