Saturday, February 15, 2025

The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak

Billionaire secrets and family tensions collide in a heart-stopping thriller

"The Last One at the Wedding" is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense that will keep you up way past your bedtime. Rekulak has crafted a novel that works on multiple levels – as a gripping mystery, a heartbreaking family drama, and a searing social commentary.

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Have you ever wished you could turn back time and undo a terrible mistake? To erase one awful moment that shattered your relationship with someone you love? Frank Szatowski would give anything for that chance with his estranged daughter Maggie. So when she suddenly calls after three years of silence to invite him to her wedding, Frank jumps at the opportunity for reconciliation. But as he steps into the opulent world of his daughter’s new family, he quickly realizes he’s stumbled into something far more sinister than he could have imagined.

Jason Rekulak’s latest novel, “The Last One at the Wedding,” is a masterclass in slow-burn suspense that will leave readers questioning how well we can ever truly know our loved ones. With razor-sharp prose and gut-wrenching twists, Rekulak weaves a tale that’s part domestic thriller, part gothic horror, and entirely captivating from start to finish.

A Father’s Hope and a Daughter’s Deception

Frank Szatowski is a simple man—a loyal UPS driver who takes pride in his perfect safety record and loves his daughter more than anything. When Maggie suddenly resurfaces after years of estrangement to announce her engagement, Frank is overjoyed. Sure, he’s a bit out of his depth among the obscenely wealthy Gardner family, but he’s determined to make things right with Maggie.

Yet from the moment Frank arrives at the lavish Osprey Cove estate, something feels… off. Aidan, Maggie’s fiancé, is oddly distant. The locals seem openly hostile towards the Gardners. And lurking beneath the picture-perfect veneer of the wedding preparations are whispers of a missing girl named Dawn Taggart.

As Frank struggles to reconnect with his daughter, he finds himself drawn deeper into a web of lies, manipulation, and murder. With each new revelation, the stakes grow higher, until Frank is forced to confront an impossible choice: uncover the truth and potentially lose Maggie forever, or turn a blind eye to protect his daughter—no matter the cost.

The Rot Beneath the Glittering Façade

Rekulak masterfully builds tension throughout the novel, peeling back layers of deception to reveal the darkness at the heart of the Gardner family. The opulent setting of Osprey Cove becomes almost a character in itself—a gilded cage where wealth and power can hide the most horrific of sins.

The author’s keen eye for detail brings the exclusive world of the ultra-rich to vivid life. From the meticulously manicured grounds to the army of staff catering to every whim, readers are fully immersed in this rarefied atmosphere. Yet Rekulak never lets us forget the rot beneath the surface, skillfully using the stark contrast between Frank’s working-class background and the Gardners’ excesses to highlight themes of class, privilege, and the corruption of power.

Unraveling the Mystery: Clues, Red Herrings, and Shocking Twists

One of the novel’s greatest strengths is Rekulak’s ability to keep readers guessing until the very end. He scatters breadcrumbs of information throughout the story, some vital and others misleading. Is Aidan truly the monster Dawn Taggart’s family claims? What’s behind Catherine Gardner’s mysterious “migraines” that keep her locked away? And most crucially – how complicit is Maggie in the dark events unfolding around her?

Rekulak plays fair with his audience, providing all the clues needed to piece together the truth. Yet he’s a master of misdirection, leading us down false paths and planting seeds of doubt that kept this reader second-guessing every theory until the explosive finale.

The Unreliable Narrator: Frank’s Blinders and Biases

Frank Szatowski serves as our window into this twisted world, and Rekulak’s choice to tell the story entirely from his perspective is a brilliant one. Frank’s desperation to reconnect with Maggie makes him an inherently unreliable narrator. We feel his internal struggle as he tries to rationalize away red flags and ignore his mounting suspicions.

This perspective allows Rekulak to explore themes of parental love and the lengths we’ll go to protect our children. Frank’s willful blindness is both frustrating and deeply relatable. How many of us have ignored warning signs about someone we love, simply because we couldn’t bear to face an ugly truth?

Characters That Haunt Long After the Last Page

Frank Szatowski: A Flawed Hero We Can’t Help But Root For

Frank is the beating heart of this novel. Rekulak has crafted a protagonist who feels utterly real—a decent man thrust into an extraordinary situation. Frank’s blue-collar background and unfamiliarity with the world of extreme wealth make him an ideal fish-out-of-water, allowing readers to experience the surreal nature of Osprey Cove through his eyes.

What truly elevates Frank as a character is his complexity. He’s not perfect—his past mistakes with Maggie haunt him, and his judgment is often clouded by his desperate need for reconciliation. Yet his fundamental decency and determination to do right by his daughter make him immensely sympathetic. We ache for Frank as he grapples with increasingly impossible choices.

The Gardner Family: A Study in Power and Corruption

Errol and Catherine Gardner, along with their son Aidan, form a chilling portrait of wealth without conscience. Rekulak resists the temptation to paint them as cartoon villains, instead creating nuanced characters whose outward charm makes their true nature all the more disturbing.

Errol, in particular, is a fascinating study in the banality of evil. His matter-of-fact approach to covering up horrific acts is more terrifying than any mustache-twirling villain could ever be. Catherine’s fragility and addiction add layers of tragedy to the family’s dysfunction.

Maggie: The Enigma at the Center

Maggie remains something of a cipher throughout much of the novel, seen primarily through Frank’s rose-tinted memories and desperate hopes for reconciliation. This makes the gradual reveal of her true nature all the more shocking. Rekulak keeps us guessing about Maggie’s motivations until the very end, forcing us to question how well we can ever truly know another person—even our own children.

Themes That Resonate and Haunt

The Corrosive Nature of Extreme Wealth

“The Last One at the Wedding” serves as a scathing indictment of the uber-wealthy and the systems that protect them. Rekulak illustrates how money and influence can be used to quite literally get away with murder. The contrast between Frank’s working-class values and the Gardners’ casual disregard for human life is stark and deeply unsettling.

The Blindness of Parental Love

Perhaps the novel’s most poignant theme is the exploration of how far a parent will go to protect their child. Frank’s willingness to overlook increasingly damning evidence speaks to the power of parental love – and its potential for devastating consequences when taken to extremes.

The Danger of Willful Ignorance

Rekulak forces readers to confront our own capacity for self-deception. How often do we choose comforting lies over uncomfortable truths? The novel asks us to examine the times we’ve turned a blind eye to red flags, and the price we pay for that willful ignorance.

A Master Class in Suspense

Rekulak’s pacing is impeccable, slowly ratcheting up the tension until it’s almost unbearable. He employs a variety of techniques to keep readers on edge:

  • Foreshadowing: Subtle hints are dropped early on, only to pay off in shocking ways later.
  • Unreliable narration: Frank’s perspective keeps us constantly questioning what’s really happening.
  • Time pressure: The countdown to the wedding creates a sense of urgency that propels the story forward.
  • Isolation: The remote setting of Osprey Cove adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere.

In the Tradition of Gothic Suspense

“The Last One at the Wedding” feels like a modern take on classic gothic literature. The sprawling estate with its dark secrets, the sense of creeping dread, the corruption lurking beneath a veneer of respectability – all call to mind the best of Daphne du Maurier or Shirley Jackson.

Fans of contemporary suspense masters like Gillian Flynn or Tana French will find much to love here. Rekulak’s unflinching look at family dysfunction and the depths of human depravity put him squarely in their company.

A Few Minor Quibbles

While “The Last One at the Wedding” is a near-perfect thriller, there are a couple of small issues that pulled me out of the story:

  • The pacing in the middle section occasionally drags, with perhaps one too many scenes of Frank fretting about fitting in.
  • A few of the secondary characters, particularly among the townsfolk, feel a bit two-dimensional.

These are minor complaints, however, and do little to detract from the overall impact of the novel.

The Verdict: A Must-Read Thriller

“The Last One at the Wedding” is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense that will keep you up way past your bedtime. Rekulak has crafted a novel that works on multiple levels – as a gripping mystery, a heartbreaking family drama, and a searing social commentary.

With its flawed but deeply sympathetic protagonist, intricate plot, and gut-punch of an ending, this is a book that will stay with you long after you turn the final page. Clear your schedule, because once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop until you’ve uncovered every last secret lurking within Osprey Cove.

Highly recommended for fans of:

  • “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn
  • The Guest List” by Lucy Foley
  • “Rebecca” by Daphne du Maurier

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"The Last One at the Wedding" is a tour-de-force of psychological suspense that will keep you up way past your bedtime. Rekulak has crafted a novel that works on multiple levels – as a gripping mystery, a heartbreaking family drama, and a searing social commentary.The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak