Book Review: The Last Thing I Told You by Emily Arsenault

It’s always good when you find a book you can’t put down, and The Last Thing I Told You by Emily Arsenault is definitely a book you can’t put down. The novel follows the investigation being undertaken of Detective Henry Peacher. A therapist is dead after being bludgeoned in his office, and the investigation makes a connection between two patients, whose files were pulled prior to Dr. Mark Fabian’s death. One of these files is that of Nadine Raines, one of Henry’s former high school classmates and one is that of Johnny Streeter, a man serving a life sentence for a mass shooting. 

The story is told from both Nadine’s and Henry’s viewpoints. 

There’s something decadent about sitting outside on a cloudy summer day reading a thriller while the kids play in their sandbox. 

This is a great book for doing that – though I have to give a disclaimer: I had my teenager watching his younger siblings, which was a good thing because I got completely wrapped up in this novel. 

About The Last Thing I Told You

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (July 24, 2018)

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.

Purchase Links

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About Emily Arsenault

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

Find out more about Emily at her website and connect with her on Facebook.