The Night We Lost Him: A Novel

by Laura Dave

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Suspense and family drama, mystery and love story, The Night We Lost Him may well leave you devastated, but only in the best way.

An instant New York Times bestseller from the author of The Last Thing He Told Me

“Dave’s signature blend of twisty mystery, family drama, and moving love story is top-notch” (The Boston Globe) in this instant New York Times bestseller where estranged siblings chase a fifty-year-old family secret that shaped their father’s mysterious life—and death...

“Pulse pounding suspense and moving family drama” —People

“A master storyteller. You won’t want to miss this one.” —Harlan Coben

“The perfect mix of heart-pounding and heartfelt...Dave delivers yet another suspenseful page-turner that should be a book club staple for a long time to come.” —New York Post

Nora Noone’s father was many things to many people. To the public he was a self-made titan of industry, whose luxury boutique hotels were among the most coveted destinations in the world. To his three ex-wives, he was a loving yet distant family man who managed to keep his finances—and his families—separate. But, to Nora, he was always a mystery—especially after his suspicious death at his cliffside home.

Though the authorities insist there was no foul play, Nora and her estranged brother, Sam, believe otherwise. As they form an uneasy alliance to unpack the mystery, they start putting together the pieces of their father’s past and uncover a family secret that changes everything.

With Laura Dave’s “signature blend of pulse-pounding suspense” (People) and “trademark emotional heft” (New York Post), The Night We Lost Him is a “propulsive” (Oprah Daily) must-read, with a heartbreaking final twist you’ll never see coming.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781668002933
Publisher:	S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	4,293
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of several novels, including The Last Thing He Told Me and Eight Hundred Grapes. Her novels have sold more than five million copies and have been translated into thirty-eight languages. She resides in Santa Monica, California.

Editorial Reviews

07/08/2024

Estranged half-siblings reunite to investigate the death of their father, self-made hotel magnate Liam Noone, in this soapy family saga from Dave (The Last Thing He Told Me). Brooklyn-based architect Nora is surprised, after years of fighting to maintain her independence from her father, by the depth of her grief following his fatal fall from the cliff outside his California home. Nora is further blindsided when Sam, the younger half-brother she barely knows from the second of Liam’s three marriages, reaches out to share his suspicion that the tragedy was no accident. Nora and Sam—who began working at the family firm after an accident derailed his promising baseball career—start squabbling almost instantly, but stonewalling from Liam’s cousin and business partner, Joe, and from the California cops whose probe of Liam’s death was perfunctory at best, convince the pair there’s a mystery to solve. Whether Liam was murdered is a question Dave dangles tantalizingly as the siblings press for answers from the family and friends who he kept almost compulsively compartmentalized. Unfortunately, save for Nora, the inconsistent characters often feel less considered than Dave’s descriptions of decor and dining. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Dave is the founder and master of a new kind of thriller. One that sets love, not death, at the fulcrum. A tour de force of emotion.” —Rebecca Serle, New York Times bestselling author of Expiration Dates and In Five Years

From the Publisher

2024-07-04
When their father dies on the cliffs of his California estate, estranged half-siblings unite to investigate possible foul play.

As Dave’s seventh novel opens, the reader learns something the characters don’t know: Hotel magnate Liam Noone did not fall by accident. He was pushed—by whom and for what reason are unclear. The police have deemed it an accident and closed the case, but his son, Sam, is not so sure. Though he hasn’t seen his half sister, Nora, in years, he shows up at her workplace in New York to ask her to go with him to California to investigate. This part of the story is told by Nora in the first person. We get a lot of information about Nora—she has recently lost both parents, she’s an authority on neuroarchitecture, she is engaged to a New York chef but has an ex in the wings—but somehow don’t get much of a feel for her as a person as she and Sam race around investigating leads and having defensive, snappy conversations. A second narrative thread begins 50 years in the past and follows the development of a romance between Liam and a woman named Cory, who is not one of his three ex-wives, nor is she a woman named Cece with whom he had a mysterious connection. The novel relies on the tension created by all these missing puzzle pieces to plunge swiftly forward, but there’s nothing really at stake—no strong suspects, no wrongly accused, no contested inheritance; it’s all just digging up the secrets of a dead person so his children can understand him now that it’s too late. Actually, nobody really understands each other in this book, and as the characters suspiciously keep each other at arm’s length, the effect extends to the reader as well. Other potentially interesting topics—neuroarchitecture (designing spaces that support emotional well-being), the high-end hotel business—are similarly set up but not explored.

A promising blueprint for a book that didn’t quite get written.

Kirkus Reviews