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The Last Thing He Told Me
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The Last Thing He Told Me / Laura Dave - 3.5***
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The Last Thing He Told Me – Laura Dave
Audiobook performed by Rebecca Lowman
3.5***
From the book jacket Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers – Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother as a child and wants nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrest Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was.
My reactions
A book-club friend once said that she dislikes thrillers because she dislikes being manipulated. I am beginning to feel that way about thrillers, too. However …
Hannah and Bailey are a great team. Reluctant barely begins to describe their relationship at the beginning, but Hannah takes Owen’s message seriously. Bailey is in many ways a typical sixteen year-old. She’s truculent and bored one moment, needy and tender, another. Of course, she also is dealing with the stress of a disappearing father and a country whose attention is focused on her family. But together, Hannah and Bailey become quite the team as they search their memories for any scrap of information that might be a clue to where to begin … to find Owen … to find the truth.
This is a fast-paced, intriguing book. There are several twists and turns that kept me turning pages long after I should have stopped to do other necessary things. I started listening to the audio in my car and was near the end of disc one when I got home. I had the text handy, as I usually do, and brought it into the house so I could finish up that chapter (as I also frequently do). I finished and then read another chapter, and another, and another, and kept on reading until I had completed the book.
Yes, there were some things that bothered me. A few threads that were left hanging. A few inconsistencies that an editor should have caught. (e.g. In one sentence a person is referred to as an actress; in the next paragraph she’s a lawyer.) But it grabbed me and kept me engaged throughout. As thrillers go, it’s pretty good.
Rebecca Lowman performs the audiobook. I only listened to the first disc before picking up the text, but she set a good pace and had clear diction, so it was easy to follow.
LINK to my review