The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

 

It was a day like any other.  Hannah woke on the houseboat in Sausalito with her new husband, Owen, and his sixteen year old daughter, Bailey.  Hannah and Owen have only been married for a year and Bailey isn't on board with it.  Hannah isn't sure what is just being a teenager and what is personal dislike but Bailey makes sure Hannah knows every day that she is an interloper.

But the day doesn't stay normal.  Hannah gets a note from Owen, not a phone call, but a note he had a student deliver to her.  It only says, Protect Her.  Hannah isn't sure what is going on but then the news stories start.  Owen was the chief IT person for a company that had just gone public.  The stories say that the owner of the firm had committed fraud, claiming as revenue sales that hadn't been completed.  He is arrested and the news stories say others in the firm will be also.

But Owen has disappeared.  He left a suitcase full of money and then nothing.  Then law enforcement starts coming.  The first is a U.S. Marshal from Texas.  Then FBI agents.  All believe that Hannah knows something about where Owen is but she doesn't .  She hires an ex-boyfriend as her attorney and starts to investigate Owen's past life to see if she can figure out where he might have gone.  Can she find him before the law does?

This novel was the Goodreads choice for top mystery in 2022.  The reader will go along with Hannah, learning about Owen's past and coming to the decision point Hannah must make.  Each reader will ask themselves if they would make the same decision that Hannah did knowing what she knew about the past and what the future would look like.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.