'The First Time I Saw Him' review: Hubby returns in gripping sequel

Laura Dave struck literary gold in 2021 with "The Last Thing He Told Me," a propulsive thriller about a woman named Hannah Hall whose husband, Owen Michaels, disappears. That bestselling novel was a Reese’s Book Club pick and is now an Apple TV series starring Jennifer Garner.

Its fans will find much to love in the sequel, "The First Time I Saw Him." Five years have passed since Owen vanished, and Hannah and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have made new lives for themselves in Southern California. But Hannah realizes, after an abrupt visit from Owen and a troublesome news report about Bailey’s grandfather, that she and Bailey are in danger. They are forced to go on the run from a criminal syndicate.

Dave’s embrace of tension instead of action turns the novel into an effective study of suspense. Her taut prose matches the story, with moments of emotional poignancy, as in this scene when Hannah is trying to comfort Bailey in the aftermath of a particularly heartbreaking death: "And I can see her trying to process it. The death that had been hovering over us. ... The death we have been trying to ready ourselves for — as if you can ever ready yourself for that kind of leveling, for that kind of grief."

For a thriller, the novel’s pace isn’t especially brisk, but that doesn’t seem to be Dave’s intention. Instead, "The First Time I Saw Him" offers a sense of completion to the characters of its predecessor and provides answers to questions that readers of that book probably had. It is still a story of people on the run, but the novel takes time to flesh out the protagonists and the circumstances that have created their universe. The result is a tense story, but a surprisingly tender one.