by Jason Rekulak ★★★☆☆
One thing that I appreciate about Jason Rekulak is that he's as genre-less as an author gets these days. His debut novel, 2017's The Impossible Fortress, was an enjoyable coming-of-age story set in the 1980s about a teenage boy who hatches a plot to steal the Vanna White edition of Playboy from a local store. It was light-hearted and nostalgic and a 5-star read for me. He followed that up with something completely different — Hidden Pictures, a horror story about a young boy who draws creepy pictures that just might be documenting crimes. That one clocked in at 4 stars for me. With my 3-star rating of The Last One at the Wedding, you can see things unfortunately continue to trend in the wrong direction.
Rekulak once again branches into a new genre, this time focusing on a fairly straightforward mystery about the upcoming wedding of the son of one of the wealthiest families in the world. Our main character and first-person narrator is Frank Szatowski, a blue-collar UPS driver and the father of the bride in the upcoming wedding. He'd been estranged from his daughter Maggie for the past three years, but with the nuptials looming, she reaches out, patches over some of the hard feelings, and opens the door for Frank to be part of the big day. But just before he leaves for the wedding, he receives an anonymous envelope in the mail. Inside is a picture of Aidan, the groom-to-be, with a young woman who has gone missing. Naturally, Frank's protective instincts kick in and he starts to question if Aidan is the right man for his daughter, and he decides he needs to find answers to those questions before it's too late.
Frank attends the wedding with his sister Tammy (Frank's wife died more than a decade prior) and Tammy's foster daughter Abigail at a remote compound on a lake in New Hampshire. As the hours countdown to the main event, additional concerns arise about Aidan and his family, and Frank becomes more and more convinced that something is amiss. Is it all in his head, and is he going to once again drive a wedge between himself and his daughter? Or is there fire where Frank thinks he smells smoke?
The Last One at the Wedding is a quick read, and it is, in a word, fine. The central mystery is adequate and the characters reasonably rendered. Nothing stood out in an overwhelmingly positive or negative way -- it was quite simply the most average book I have read this year. I know Rekulak has a 5-star in him, because I read it in The Impossible Fortress! Here's hoping he finds that. magic again the next time around.
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