L
Laura Dave
Laura Dave is the author of the #1 bestseller The Last Thing He Told Me, a popular mystery. Her other novels, like Eight Hundred Grapes and Hello Sunshine, explore family secrets and relationships
The Last Thing He Told Me
Synopsis
Owen Michaels has been gone only a few hours when the note reaches his wife of just over a year, Hannah Hall: two words, "Protect her." The "her" is Bailey, Owen's sixteen-year-old daughter, who has never wanted a stepmother and wants one even less now.
As Owen vanishes, the pieces of the life he built start to come apart. The FBI arrests his boss at the tech company where he worked, US marshals turn up at the family's Sausalito houseboat, and Hannah realizes that almost nothing she knew about her husband, his past, even his name, may be true. With no one else to trust, she and the prickly, grieving Bailey set out to reconstruct who Owen really was and why he ran.
Laura Dave's bestselling domestic thriller is a fast, twisty story about marriage, secrets, and the unexpected family that forms between a reluctant stepmother and daughter.
Genres
Characters
Hannah HallProtagonist
Woodturner whose husband vanishes, leaving her to protect his daughter.
Bailey MichaelsSupporting
Owen's teenage daughter and Hannah's reluctant stepdaughter.
Owen MichaelsSupporting
Hannah's husband, who disappears amid a fraud investigation.
Jake Anderson (The Last Thing He Told Me)Supporting
Grady BradfordSupporting
A U.S. Marshal out of the Austin office who turns up at Hannah's door asking about Owen.
Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller (2021)
Frequently asked questions
Is there a sequel to this book?
The story continues in the follow-up novel titled The First Time I Saw Him, which explores the aftermath of the events in the first book.
How does the television adaptation relate to the books?
The Apple TV+ series adapts both the original novel and its sequel, with the second season specifically covering the events of The First Time I Saw Him.