Review with Spoilers for The Last One At the Wedding

Going in, Rekulak tries to make us believe that Frank’s future son-in-law Aidan is the villain and that Maggie is his unwitting victim.

If there’s a missing woman who was connected to Aidan, then Aiden is a dangerous murderer. Right?

Maybe…

First, let’s discuss what happened to missing local woman Dawn Taggart:

• Dawn slept with Aidan’s wealthy father, Errol Gardner.
• Dawn came to Osprey Cove, the Gardner’s elite summer retreat, to talk to Errol’s wife Catherine.
• When Dawn revealed she was pregnant, Errol’s furious wife Catherine hit her over the head. Dawn fell down the stairs and died.
• Errol’s henchmen, legal advisor Gerry and head of security Hugo, help dispose of Dawn’s boy at the bottom of Lake Wyndham.

Aren’t Gerry and Hugo characters in Succession? YES

What Was the Deal With Maggie and Aidan’s Relationship?

It was a fraud, a sham, a fauxmance.

• Maggie and Errol, who were secretly lovers, wanted to be together without alerting anyone. Errol was a notorious womanizer and Maggie was his employee.
• After Dawn’s death, Maggie and Errol blackmailed Aidan into a sham marriage with Maggie. If he refused, they would tell the police that his mother Catherine killed Dawn Taggart.

What Was the Ending of The Last One at the Wedding?

• Frank finds Maggie in bed with Errol Gardner (the description of this is as bad as the nest of spiders)
• In the end, Aidan can’t go through with the sham marriage. He leaves Maggie at the altar.
• Frank tracks Aidan to a bomb shelter in the Osprey Cove complex and tries to reason with him. He offers to leave the island with Aidan.
• But when Errol and Hugo show up, Aidan takes his own life.
• Errol tells a horrified Frank that Aidan wasn’t his biological son anyway. Okay, then.

Frank is ready to head home to Pennsylvania with his sister Tammy and plucky savant foster child Abigail (who had ALL the vibes of Eleven in Stranger Things)

As he’s packing, Frank discovers the present Aidan promised to leave him: an envelope with $1000.

Frank hits rock bottom

• Frank, who prided himself on his perfect UPS driving record, has an accident and is forcibly retired.
• He becomes depressed, but babysitting foster child Abigail helps him feel better.
• Abigail reveals that Aidan left her a present too: a map!
• Frank realizes that he and Abigail switched rooms (because of the spiders). The map was for him. It’s the location of Dawn’s body! Thanks, Aiden!

What Does Frank Do?

• He calls Maggie and tells her about the map
• She asks him to bring it to her home in Boston
• Frank arrives to see Maggie hosting a big party. Frank gives the map to Maggie. Errol Gardner and henchmen Gerry and Hugo throw the map in the fire pit.
• Gerry and Hugo then ask after Abigail (Frank told Maggie where he got the map.)
• Frank realizes Abigail’s a loose end and that they will kill her.
• A horrified Frank hides in Maggie’s bathroom and warns Tammy to go into hiding with Abigail.
• He remembers that strange object he found in Maggie’s toilet tank the night he first met Aiden (Frank’s an odd guy).
• There’s a madcap series of events including a dropped platter of roast duck and a fire alarm, but Frank escapes with his prize: a hard drive with Maggie’s “insurance policy” evidence against Errol.

After that, we get a flash forward:

• Frank tries to visit Maggie in prison, and she refuses to see him
• Tammy adopts Abigail
• Errol, Gerry and Hugo were also arrested. Gerry and Errol are out on bail, while Hugo got extradited to Africa to answer for labor/human rights violations he committed there.
• Dawn’s body was recovered (did Frank make a copy of the map? Did child genius Abigail memorize the map? I can’t remember so tell me in comments)

My Thoughts on The Last One at the Wedding

My take on The Last One at the Wedding? It’s an odd blend of:

• a fast paced action book
• But also uses classic suspense premises (the wedding, the “bad seed” child….)

I thought the combination of the two didn’t always work.

Given Rekulak’s former book, which was paranormal psychological suspense, I was surprised at the way Maggie’s sociopathy was used as a plot device without much explanation.

It was interesting to me that Frank clearly knew Maggie was “off” but got sucked back into her manipulation.

Seeing a male character in this situation instead of a female (usually in these books the genders are reversed and the woman is the victim of the sociopathic male) was unexpected. Did you find it effective?

Some readers hated the “bro” energy. HATED it.

I think a “wedding” mystery comes with expectations. In this book, the wedding felt like a bit of an afterthought.

Some readers found Frank an INSUFFERABLE mansplainer. Given his age and general life situation, it didn’t seem that strange.

As I said above, The Last One at the Wedding did feel to me like a guy book, and that wedding book + guy book may not be a winning combination.

The female characters weren’t all that relatable either. They were either manipulative monsters (Maggie) or ditsy birdbrains (Tammy and Catherine). Thank goodness for Abigail!

Other readers found the Frank/Maggie relationship realistic and touching

Yes, except that Maggie is a compulsive liar and manipulator and Frank is her enabler. So … okay.

I do think it’s interesting that “Bad Seed” books like Baby Teeth or We Need to Talk About Kevin often feature mothers. Having Frank be male and a widower was an interesting choice. I think the book incorporated as much of Maggie’s past misdeeds as possible without slowing the book down.

This article suggests that female sociopaths and psychopaths are undercounted and under-detected due to bias, and we are recently seeing MANY more books about women like Maggie. Some are on my list of books on Dangerous Women.

What did YOU think? Is Frank an annoying and clueless mansplainer or a touchingly devoted dad? I think two things can be true at once and that he’s sort of both. All thoughts welcome!