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    The Last Thing I Told You: A Novel
    The Last Thing I Told You: A Novel
    The Last Thing I Told You: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Last Thing I Told You: A Novel

    Written by Emily Arsenault

    Narrated by Roger Wayne and Tavia Gilbert

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    From the acclaimed author of The Evening Spider and The Broken Teaglass comes this psychological thriller about the murder of a psychologist in a quiet New England town and his former patient whose unreliable thread will keep readers guessing until the shocking end.

    I hear myself whispering. Not again. Not again.

    Why did I ever come back here? Surely because of you. Because I thought of something I’d always meant to tell you. Because you were the only one I ever really wanted to tell it to…

    Therapist Dr. Mark Fabian is dead—bludgeoned in his office.

    But that doesn’t stop former patient Nadine Raines from talking to him—in her head. Why did she come back to her hometown after so many years away? Everyone here thinks she’s crazy. And she has to admit—they might have good reason to think so. She committed a shockingly violent act when she was sixteen, and has never really been able to explain that dark impulse—even to Fabian. Now that Fabian’s dead, why is she still trying?

    Meanwhile, as Detective Henry Peacher investigates Fabian’s death, he discovers that shortly before he died, Fabian pulled the files of two former patients. One was of Nadine Raines, one of Henry’s former high school classmates. Henry still remembers the disturbing attack on a teacher that marked Nadine as a deeply troubled teen.

    More shockingly, the other file was of Johnny Streeter, who is now serving a life sentence for a mass shooting five years ago. The shooting devastated the town and everyone—including Henry, who is uncomfortable with the “hero” status the tragedy afforded him—is ready to move on. But the appearance of his file brings up new questions. Maybe there is a decades-old connection between Nadine and Streeter. And maybe that somehow explains what Nadine is doing in Fabian’s office nearly twenty years after being his patient. Or how Fabian ended up dead two days after her return. Or why Nadine has fled town once again.

    But as Nadine and Henry head toward a confrontation, both will discover that the secrets of people’s hearts are rarely simple, and—even in the hidden depths of a psychologist’s files—rarely as they appear.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateJul 24, 2018
    ISBN9780062850591
    Author

    Emily Arsenault

    Emily Arsenault is also the author of The Evening Spider, The Broken Teaglass, In Search of the Rose Notes, Miss Me When I’m Gone, What Strange Creatures, and the young adult novel The Leaf Reader. She lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughter.

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    Reviews for The Last Thing I Told You

    3/5

    53 ratings15 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I will say it was easy reading, but the back and forth between the 2 characters was not enjoyable. The story itself might have been good if written differently, but the 2 voices just made it drag. Sadly because of this book I would never try another of her books.
    • 3/5
      Story line brought you through a useless rabbit hole. To much who done it, when these characters meant nothing.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic book, keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering who did it the entire time. So engaging and well written.
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars.

      Written in two distinct points of view and alternating between past and present, The Last Thing I Told You by Emily Arsenault is a riveting murder mystery.

      Detective Sergeant Henry Peacher is the lead detective investigating therapist Mark Fabian's murder. With scant evidence to go on, Henry's investigation leads him down a tangled path to former classmate Nadine Raines, Brookhaven  nursing home, and convicted killer Johnny Streeter. Nadine is a former patient with a troubled past who has not lived in Campion for twenty years. However, Henry discovers Nadine is in town visiting her mother and stepfather, who interestingly enough works at Brookhaven, but tracking her down proves to be quite challenging. The connection to Brookhaven is tenuous at best but since Mark consulted with patients at Brookhaven the nursing home deserves a  closer look. In another interesting twist, Henry turned into a local hero after he stopped Johnny Streeter's murderous rampage at Brookhaven. Johnny is still behind bars but could he have convinced someone on the outside to murder Dr. Fabian?

      Henry  is a methodical detective who is willing to put in long hours to identify Mark's killer. He is troubled by the case's unexpected connections to Johnny and Brookhaven. He is wracked with guilt that he did not save more of Brookhaven's residents during Johnny's shooting spree.  However, Henry does not let this remorse stop him from following each lead he uncovers.  He is quite thorough as he revisits seemingly disparate bits of information and does not hesitate to re-question witnesses when necessary. Once the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, Henry does not let anything stop him from finding out the truth.

      The chapters from Nadine's perspective are quite intriguing and offer fascinating insights into her life both in the past and present.  Her inner thoughts are directed toward Dr. Fabian as she revisits her previous sessions with him from twenty years earlier. There is no doubt Nadine has some psychological issues but it is her actions in the present make her a prime suspect in her former therapist's murder.

      With a clever plot and fascinating narrators, The Last Thing I Told You is an absolutely captivating mystery. The vibrantly and realistically developed characters are so life-like they leap off the pages. The storyline is intricately plotted with plenty of red herrings and plausible misdirects.  Emily Arsenault does an outstanding job keeping the perpetrator's identity tightly under wraps until the novel's twist-filled conclusion. Fans of the genre will enjoy this fast-paced and compelling mystery.
    • 4/5
      In this psychological thriller, Dr. Mark Fabian is found murdered in his office. The case is handled by Detective Henry Peacher, lifelong resident of this quiet town in Maine. Henry discovers that shortly before his death Fabian, a psychologist, had pulled the files of two of his former clients - Nadine Raines and Johnny Streeter. The story alternates between Henry’s investigation in the present and Nadine “talking” to Fabian – in her head.At sixteen, Nadine had committed a shocking, violent act upon a teacher. Henry remembers Nadine quite well – she was a former classmate of his. Streeter is now in prison serving a life sentence for a mass shooting five years earlier at Brookhaven Manor Retirement Community. Henry muses upon why these two files were pulled. Is there a connection between them? Why did Nadine recently return after having been away for many years? Why did Nadine see Fabian again after nearly twenty years? Henry zeroes in on one thread that seems to connect Nadine, Johnny, and Fabian. Arsenault writes unflinchingly of the struggle Nadine, mentally ill, deals with on a daily basis. She had a difficult childhood and strives unsuccessfully to understand her dark impulses. After the incident with her teacher the entire town thinks she is crazy, a stigma she cannot escape. But does it mean she is killer? Overall, the book is fast-paced but did begin to lag a little over halfway through. Some of the chapters seemed to repeat themselves, adding no new information. But by that point I was intrigued and wanted to know how it turned out. Arsenault’s skillful use of red herrings along the way kept me questioning the conclusion.Thank you to William Morrow Books for the advance reading copy.
    • 4/5
      Nadine did something in her early teen years that she may never be able to recover from no matter how hard she tries. Now 20 years later, something horrific happens to the very therapist that tried to help Nadine all those years ago. Henry, the cop called to the scene has also been traumatized, and is now looking for Nadine. Told between the perspectives of Nadine and Henry, a trip to the past and whether people can really change. The twists and turns were perfectly timed and made this a great beach read.
    • 3/5
      This book had an intriguing premise. Psychotherapist Dr. Mark Fabian is found murdered in his office. Detective Henry Peacher, who is investigating the case, finds himself delving deep into the past, into the lives of Fabian's former patients, the history of the local senior home, and his own personal connections to the small town of Campion, where the murder took place and where Detective Peacher is based. Who wanted Fabian dead, or -- more accurately -- who didn't want him dead?Unfortunately, as soon as I reached page 6 I knew I wasn't going to like author Emily Arsenault. (This is the first book of hers that I've ever read.) Why? Because she uses unnecessary jargon (and unexplained jargon, mind you) that makes the language awkward and comes across as her trying too hard to be "cool." Here is the specific example of what I'm talking about: Fabian's body is found, and in describing it, Arsenault says, "He had the rig..." Why not just say, "Rigor mortis had set in" or something to that effect. I wasted a good 30 seconds trying to make sense of the phrase "he had the rig" before I finally figured out that she was talking about rigor mortis. No sentences near that phrase described anything like stiffness in the body; had that been the case, it would have been obvious what "rig" meant. As soon as I read this phrase and figured out what it meant, I groaned and thought, "Wow, Arsenault is trying way too hard, and it's not coming across well." I went into the rest of the book hesitantly.Another strange use of language was a little bit later in the book when Det. Peacher was talking one-on-one with another person and a door behind him opens and closes as the police chief walks in. A simple thing that doesn't need any attention-calling, right? Not according to Arsenault. In this scene she is oddly far too descriptive when simply describing the door opening and closing. I was expecting it to lead to more, but no, it was just a door opening and closing. I was extremely puzzled by this description. What was the point? I quote it here: "There was a sound behind me. A clank-clunk that I felt first in my chest, and that seemed to shoot halfway up my throat...I whipped around. Because I'd been facing Melissa, I hadn't seen Chief Wheeler approach the building. The sound was him pushing open the building's heavy institutional door." And that's it. Nothing more happens. The chief doesn't even stop to talk to Peacher. What the heck was the point of using an entire paragraph for this? Arsenault could simply have said something like, "I heard the building's heavy institutional door open and close behind me and turned around to see Chief Wheeler make his way to Fabian's office." The melodramatic language and extended description that Arsenault uses was awkward and pointless. Her editor should have caught this.Ok, enough about the author's use of language. Let's talk about the plot. This was not a tightly written plot. When Peacher delves into Fabian's past and starts to investigate the past and present life of former patient Nadine Raines, a lot comes out about Nadine's past that is actually rather intriguing. But what appears to be a significant plot point is Nadine's relationship with another of Fabian's patients at the time. Arsenault invests a good bit of the book on Peacher's following this line of investigation, and in doing so did have me in her suspenseful grip as I wondered how this part of Nadine's life was going to play into Fabian's death.******spoiler below*******When I finished the book, I realized everything that had to do with Nadine's past relationship had absolutely NOTHING to do with the resolution of the mystery. Nothing at all. Nothing. I couldn't believe it. The loose ends of Nadine's past family life, Nadine's past relationship with the other patient, and the Brookhaven nursing home's current state of affairs never tied up. The murderer had nothing to do with Nadine. The motive for the murder had nothing to do with Nadine. The entire resolution was almost completely unrelated to the bulk of the book leading up to it. What? I was disbelieving. No, I didn't see the resolution coming; I couldn't have predicted the murderer because the murderer wasn't even introduced into the book until more than 3/4 through the book.So, overall, the book was disappointing. I give it a generous 3 stars because there were moments where I did feel drawn in, but the fact that a good chunk of the book ended up being irrelevant to the resolution was highly disappointing.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. I really liked Nadine, who is a very flawed character. The story is told from two points of view, hers and Henry's, who is a cop. A therapist has been murdered and Nadine becomes a suspect. The story lags in a few places, but overall kept my interest.
    • 2/5
      This book started out good. I liked the pacing and it was interesting to read alternate views from the detective and patient. Unfortunately, this one didn't keep me entertained. I really struggled to get through it, but feel like I just wasn't the right reader and other people will enjoy it more than me.
    • 3/5
      A therapist is found murdered in his office and the trail seems to lead to a former patient of his. Nadine, at the age of sixteen stabbed her teacher for no apparent reason. She now believes that there is something bad inside her and always seems to be running. We learn her story as she ‘talks’ to the dead therapist.Henry, is the detective assigned to the case which leads him all over the place. As he tracks down Nadine, he also discovers that a mass murderer, Johnny Streeter was a past patient of the doctor and may have a link to Nadine. But he is in prison and has been for some time.This is some psychological thriller and it had me guessing as to what is going on and what will happen. Both Nadine and Henry are characters that I enjoyed learning about. It was a good read.
    • 3/5
      I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book in the beginning. It read fast, I was invested in figuring out the secret and discovering the truth about who killed Dr. Fabian, but the ending kind of killed the rest of the story for me. I felt as if the author purposefully sent the reader's attention towards one specific subject, she made this character's actions feel as if they are expressing guilt, making the reader feel like they know the outcome, but then the author give the reader more information that points in a totally different direction. Don't get me wrong, I love a good twist ending, especially if I didn't see it coming, but I get frustrated when the twist comes without enough information for the reader to even try and figure it out. This book felt obvious and predictable, but not necessarily in a bad way because we didn't really know the motive for what seemed like the obvious character responsible, but then the killer is revealed and it comes out that many of the things we thought we knew as reader's was wrong, but it was wrong because we were given wrong information. I appreciate the desire to give readers a shock, especially one they didn't see coming, but we also need to be given little hints to be able to feel like we missed what was right in front of us. I feel like this book was trying to do what Dark Places by Gillian Flynn did. When we finally get to answers we want, we are surprised but the answers didn't come from totally out of the blue.
    • 4/5
      Dr. Mark Fabian is dead--found murdered in his office. Left behind is his former patient, Nadine, who continues to talk to Dr. Fabian in her mind, telling him about her life in the many years since she saw the doctor. Back then, she was a troubled teen, ostracized for a gruesome act while in high school. Investigating Dr. Fabian's murder is Henry Peacher, a detective most known in town for stopping a deadly shooting at a posh retirement community before the death count went any higher. Before Dr. Fabian died, he pulled two files from his archives: those of Nadine's and Johnny Streeter, the man responsible for the killing at the retirement home. Henry is left to puzzle through what this all means--for instance, what did Nadine and Dr. Fabian discuss when she returned to town a mere two days before his death? Is there a connection between Nadine and Johnny? And what led to the brutal killing of this doctor?Well, this was a different sort of psychological thriller. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but one of my favorite things about it was that it was different, even if it favored the varying point-of-view aspect that is quite popular these days. The narration flips between Nadine and Henry, and because both are often telling stories that go back in time, it can vary in time periods as well. It takes a little getting used to, but it's also quite compelling. I read the book in a day while on vacation, finding it to be quite suspenseful and intriguing.For me, the main draw to this one was the characters. Nadine is nuanced, complicated, and imperfect, but the real star was Henry. I enjoyed the book the most due to him. He's hard to describe, but he too is multi-faceted and flawed. He's a father to spirited twin girls (only a year older than mine), and I felt drawn to him immediately. Nadine and Henry are both different on the surface but each searching for things in a similar way--again, I was very impressed with their characterization. So much of the book takes place in and is shaped by the small town in which the characters live, and it's all quite well-done.I don't want to go into much more to spoil the plot, as it does keep you guessing. A lot of what happened surprised me, which I always enjoy (doesn't often happen in a thriller). Overall, this one was different but enjoyable, buoyed by its strong characters and complex plot.I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Edelweiss/Librarything in return for an unbiased review (thank you!); it is available everywhere as 07/24/2018.
    • 1/5
      I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review. What I wish I'd also received was a better pay-off for a story with a lot of promise. Generally, I like novels about therapists and psychologists. The variety of patient stories, the struggle for their own stability, and the chance of great surprise when it turns out they are much scarier than anything you’d hear in their sessions. Not everybody can be Hannibal, but there’s always that chance that the plaid suit and the kitchen utensils will come out by the tenth session. I got hooked into this particular story with the promise of a mystery and an unraveling patient-doctor relationship. The book opens in the office of Mark Fabian, therapist for years and corpse for hours. His head is bashed in, his patient notes are sketchy, and oh, by the way, his closest friends report him as having memory problems recently, so good luck with those notes again. The chapters alternate between narrators Henry, a local cop who gained fame from a retirement home shooting a few years previously, and Nadine, a former patient of Fabian’s. I’m still getting my head around a shooter in a frigging *retirement home.* Not that it’s too farfetched these days, but what the what?Nadine’s story alternates between the present and 1997, when she was in therapy after a violent incident at school – with all this backstory, you expect her underlying psychosis to be something shocking. She even writes that perversion is in her blood (cue dramatic music). I don’t know if the author planned something bigger to explain the build-up to the outburst and then gave up or we’re actually supposed to be shocked by something that turns out to be terribly garden-variety.Henry’s side of things covers his involvement in the shooting (he took down a shooter and is now a local hero who just wants people to stop calling him that) and his attempt to piece together how Fabian (I kept reading that as ‘Fabio’) wound up dead. Oh, and his kids are getting warped by fairytales with iron shoes and decapitations. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a cautionary bit about your kids winding up in therapy or a suggestion for scary stuff hidden in children’s fiction. Either way, now I want to read ‘The Red Shoes.’ Honestly, this book felt like such a tangled mess that I can barely write this review. It started out so readable and then just seemed to drag into wet noodles. Other crimes in the area are mentioned, but written in an almost throw-away fashion, even though they are suddenly a big deal for the ending. There’s no startling reveal of some long-buried secret to explain Nadine’s violence. There’s no startling reveal that Henry is someone interesting. Fabian’s murder has one of the most beige explanations I’ve ever read. If a book starts out crap and then ends the same way, that’s bad. This whole bait-and-switch thing seems even worse, because now you’ve had a chance to get excited over where things are going. Surely this will not end in you slapping yourself awake at nine p.m. and throwing the book into the library donation bag. Just because I was almost asleep doesn’t mean I take the whole bait-and-switch thing lying down. I won’t be looking for anything else by this author. Now if someone will introduce me to a nice novel involving a suit and fork…
    • 3/5
      This was just an average thriller - I wanted to finish it to find out who had killed Dr. Fabian but I didn't love the book itself. It seemed like there were too many characters and none of them were really well developed. The author just kept throwing in different suspects or people who knew Nadine or Dr. Fabian but didn't really tell you much about them. The ending for me was kind of letdown since the murderer ended up being someone who was barely in the book prior to being revealed as the culprit. I won an ARC of this book from LibraryThing.
    • 2/5
      Now that I have finished the book, one word continues to pop up--waiting. Every time I picked up the book, I asked myself when will the action get going? I waited and waited and waited...... I would not call the book boring, but it just did not interest me. I even thought in the chapters with the psychologist's notes or the real sessions, that some exciting happening would reveal a bombshell---never happened. Arsenault is obviously a great writer, but this one misses the mark entirely. I never "got into it" as they say. A few stars for a nice try, but this technique does not work. Nadine and Henry are lackluster characters in a story that borders on a stream of consciousness technique, but that does not even work. There is one sex scene which disappoints. Overall, this is not a book for me.