The Night We Lost Him is a suspense novel highly focused on the complexities of family and romantic relationships. When Nora Noone’s father falls off a cliff at his seaside home, her half-brother Sam calls foul play despite the police determining the death was an accident. Nora and Sam, who barely know each other, team up to do their own investigation.

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Let’s begin with a summary of The Night We Lost Him.

Liam Noone is a complicated man. The self-made hotel magnate has been married three times and keeps all three of his families compartmentalized from each other to the point that Nora and Sam are virtual strangers. He loves and is proud of his children yet is also emotionally distant. And as the story unfolds, we learn that he has also loved the same woman since high school, and that their connection still runs deep despite their many marriages.

Liam also wouldn’t accidentally step off a cliff on the property he knows so well. That’s what really bothers Sam about his father’s death, which leads him to believe Liam was pushed by his murderer. He’s so convinced of this that he talks Nora into finding out the answers with him. Their father was so secretive that this is no small task, so the first thing they do is head to the scene of the possible crime to see if they can dig up any clues.

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While in California, they discover that the police didn’t do a very thorough job investigating their dad’s death. There were three people who were on the beach following Liam’s fall, and the police didn’t bother interviewing one of them – a male “jogger” who was wearing un-joggerly clothes. This makes Sam and Nora even more suspicious.

As they continue to search for answers, the siblings unearth more secrets their father was keeping. For example, he had recently rewritten his will, and he had spoken to a rival about purchasing his company. Are these secrets related to Liam’s death or just red herrings? And then Nora visits her father’s childhood home and discovers the secret that matters most – his lifelong (and dysfunctional) romance with a woman who is familiar to both Nora and Sam.

A secondary thread running through the story is Nora’s relationship with her fiancé Jack. When we first see the couple interacting, they are obviously in love and devoted to each other, but then Nora pushes him away for a reason I didn’t understand. By the end of the book, their relationship is in jeopardy. Run, Jack, run!

Sam is also involved in complicated romantic relationships. He is engaged to a woman he doesn’t know very well, while being in love with a woman who rejected him. He even took Nora to meet the woman who broke his heart. I don’t know why.

Liam’s may have been the most confusing relationship of the three. There are flashbacks throughout the book that chronicle his relationship with Cory (short for Cordelia) through the years. She supposedly loves him, but in pretty much all her interactions with Liam she’s arguing and disagreeing with him. Maybe some guys like that?? And she rejected his multiple marriage proposals. Again, I didn’t understand why.

The author spends a lot of time discussing these relationships in The Night We Lost Him and even gets pretty philosophical. But for me, it was mystifying and alien to see these characters overcomplicating their relationships and making them so unhealthy. I couldn’t relate and found a lot of it tedious.

While The Night We Lost Him is an okay book in general, the suspense aspects of it are rather bland. Maybe save your time and read a better book.