The Last Talk with Lola Faye

A Novel

By: Thomas Cook

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

New York Times best-selling author and Edgar Award winner Thomas H. Cook’s atmospheric thrillers cut to the core of humanity’s deepest fears. Here, Lucas Paige, a floundering middle-aged historian, reluctantly sits down with the woman he suspects was responsible for his father’s murder decades before. As they drink, they open up about this seminal event and he discovers much of what he thought to be true is anything but.

©2010 Thomas H. Cook (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“In this tightly coiled, intellectual drama, Cook unwinds a marvelously tense story of belated redemption.” ( Publishers Weekly)

Excellent Narration - Interesting Story

Reading the summary of this book, it seems to be something I might tolerate reading for a book club, but not the kind of novel I would choose to read on my own. So, I’m not sure why I purchased this when it was a Kindle Daily Deal two years ago. Maybe I was thinking I should expand my horizons by reading outside my usual genres. Maybe I was still in an acquisition frenzy attempting to load my new Kindle to create a diverse digital library. Whatever the reason, I’m sure I intended to read it, but it languished in my Kindle queue until last week when I was using the Kindle Audio Companion search to find an audiobook. “The Last Talk With Lola Faye” popped up and I decided it’s time had come.

I’m certain that the amazing performance of narrator, Aaron David Baker, enhanced my enjoyment of this novel. Since this story is told through a dialogue between two people - one male, one female – it had to be a challenge to make the voices of each character distinct enough to avoid listener confusion. AND, when a male narrator manages to do a female voice without sounding like a drag queen, I always give an extra point. Baker managed this.

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this novel. Although not an actual murder mystery, it is a mystery ABOUT a murder.

Luke is shocked when Lola Faye, the woman Luke was certain was his father’s mistress, shows up at his book reading/signing 20 years after his father’s murder. She doesn’t give the impression of being very intelligent, but she proves to be quite manipulative, and the next thing Luke knows he has agreed to talk with Lola Faye over drinks.

The longer they talk the more Luke realizes that not everything about the events leading up to the murder were as he thought. As a matter of fact, Luke slowly realizes that there were many things about his family and his life that were not as he thought.

Although I found Luke to be an unlikable, arrogant character, and I was never sure how I felt about Lola Faye, I really enjoyed the story - especially the slow reveal of the unknown (to Luke) information. I even liked the redemptive final chapter which seems to be the one thing most reviewers didn’t like or for some reason didn’t understand.

Unique story

This has been in my wish list for a long time until last week, when I saw that Audible included this in Plus catalog. I didn't want another minute to start this book.

The previous reviewer, Clarice Marchman-Jones, said everything I felt about this book but phrased it much better than I could. This is a very different style of a book and performance is definitely superb.

I would've just clicked the 4-star button and left it alone. But when I saw there was only one review posted, I had to write something because this book deserves to be read by more than just a few. I appreciated the writing and performance and wanted to recommend to others.