Published in 2026, The First Time I Saw Him by American author Laura Dave is the second novel in the Hannah Hall family crime thriller series. Dave was inspired to write the story after becoming intrigued by Linda Lay, wife of Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, in the wake of the company’s infamous financial scandal in the early 2000s. The first novel, The Last Thing He Told Me, was a New York Times best seller for over 80 weeks and was adapted into an Apple TV+ series in 2023, starring Jennifer Garner as Hannah Hall and Angourie Rice as Bailey Michaels. The second season of the series covers the events of The First Time I Saw Him.

The First Time I Saw Him picks up where the previous novel left off, with artisan woodworker Hannah Hall encountering her elusive husband, Owen Michaels, at a homeware exhibition in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to Hannah, Owen’s sudden reappearance is merely one step in a larger plan designed to reunite their family and liberate them from the crosshairs of the Organization, a criminal syndicate represented by Nicholas Bell, Owen’s father-in-law. Hannah and her stepdaughter, Bailey, must escape their shady pursuers to fulfill Owen’s plan and find peace once and for all. Dave uses this story to examine themes of Dealing with the Consequences of the Past, Finding Purpose in Family, and Effort as a Means of Reconciliation.

This is based on the Kindle edition of the novel, published by Scribner in 2026.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness, death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

The novel, which takes place five years after The Last Thing He Told Me, opens on artisan woodworker Hannah Hall’s surprise reunion with her husband, Owen Michaels, at a houseware exhibition in Los Angeles. Hannah learns that Owen visited her to place a flash drive in her pocket. Before she can examine its contents, she gets a text from an anonymous phone number telling her to leave. Hannah signals to her stepdaughter, Bailey, who has graduated from college and is now working as the assistant to an overbearing casting agent, to meet her in Malibu. They make it out of Los Angeles just before men posing as gas utility workers can reach them.

At the safe house offered by Hannah’s ex-fiancé, Jake, Hannah and Bailey learn that Nicholas Bell, Bailey’s grandfather and the lawyer who represented the criminal syndicate the Organization, has died of a heart attack at his lake house in Texas. The news devastates Hannah and Bailey since he not only protected both women from the Organization but also made the effort to build his relationship with them over the past five years. Hannah’s law enforcement contact, US Marshal Grady Bradford, suggests that Nicholas’s death, along with changes in the Organization’s power hierarchy, has set off a shift in the syndicate’s priorities, which puts Hannah and Bailey at risk. They examine the flash drive and discover several photo albums related to Hannah and Owen’s relationship. Hannah soon realizes that Owen is using these albums to clue her in on where to go.

Based on photos from their life in Sausalito, Hannah reaches out to Owen’s old friends, Carl and Patty, who direct her to Carl’s brother, Daniel, a pilot who operates out of Napa County Airport. Hannah and Bailey board Daniel’s plane, which initially makes a dangerous stopover in Miami before proceeding to its final destination in Paris, France, which was also the location of Hannah and Owen’s honeymoon. Hannah follows Owen’s photos to the hotel where they stayed and is surprised to discover not Owen but Nicholas in the room they previously occupied.

Flashbacks interspersed throughout the novel reveal that Nicholas chose to associate himself with the Organization when he realized that it would liberate him from financial debt and guarantee a life of security for his wife and children. Over time, Nicholas became close friends with the head of the Organization, Francis “Frank” Campano Pointe II; the two often brought their families together for joint vacations and travels. Nicholas comforted Frank in the wake of his wife’s death. When Nicholas asked Frank if he could step away from the Organization, Frank accepted, allowing Nicholas to make room for Wesley, the husband of Frank’s eldest daughter, Quinn. Following the sudden death of Nicholas’s daughter, Kate, in a car accident, Frank offered to do Nicholas any favor as a way of consoling him. Shortly after the events of the first novel, Owen reached out to Nicholas, urging him to realize that his association with the Organization would always put Hannah and Bailey at risk. Nicholas confirmed this assertion when he confronted Frank and realized that Quinn was responsible for Kate’s death. From then on, Nicholas covertly began working with Owen to take Hannah and Bailey definitively out of harm’s way.

Nicholas reveals that he staged his death to see if the Organization would renege on its agreement to keep Hannah and Bailey safe. He indicates that this breach of promise only happened because Frank is giving the reins of the Organization over to Quinn and her brother, Teddy, who want to seek revenge against Owen after Owen’s testimony led to Wesley’s incarceration. Nicholas’s plan is to confront Frank at his birthday party in the town of Èze and expose his children’s intentions against Hannah and Bailey. Hannah insists on accompanying Nicholas, worried that Quinn and Teddy will try to eliminate him if he goes alone.

Hannah and Nicholas leave Bailey in Antibes, where she reunites with Owen. Owen and Bailey station themselves in a boat, where Owen can monitor Hannah and Nicholas as they breach Frank’s party. Upon confronting Frank, Quinn, and Teddy, Nicholas and Hannah reveal that they are prepared to leak decades of incriminating evidence to the authorities in the United States, ensuring that none of the three ever set foot in the country again. Nicholas demands that the Organization let Owen, Hannah, and Bailey walk free, which Quinn is reluctant to do. Frank signals his rejection of Nicholas’s plan by shooting him, but this turns out to be a ruse: The gunshot isn’t fatal but persuades Quinn and Teddy that their father intends to order his lieutenants to pursue and kill Nicholas.

A final flashback reveals Frank’s involvement with Nicholas and Owen, premised on the belief that their families’ mutually assured destruction would benefit no one. Nicholas will draw the Organization’s ire away from Owen, Hannah, and Bailey so that they can live out the rest of their lives in peace. Though they leave the party with their lives, Nicholas bids Hannah farewell and exiles himself to Tuscany, where he can live close to Kate and his wife’s graves. Hannah, meanwhile, reunites with Bailey and Owen at the marina in Antibes and realizes that they have their old life back.