The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise (2023) is a heist novel by fiction writer Colleen Oakley that explores a cross-country journey taken by elderly woman Louise Wilt and her younger caregiver, Tanner Quimby. The pair journey across the country to save Louise’s heist partner, with whom she allegedly robbed a hotel of money and jewels in 1975, from a vengeful mafia boss and to escape the authorities who are hot on their tail.

This guide refers to the 2023 Berkley hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss domestic abuse, sexual assault, and gun violence.

Plot Summary

Jules, the daughter of 84-year-old Louise Wilt, calls the Atlanta police to report her mother missing after failing to hear from her for several days and after Louise misses her regular hair appointment.

Ten days prior, Louise ruminates over a mysterious and unnerving letter she received from George Dixon, a person from her past. Tanner Quimby arrives to be Louise’s caretaker. A couple of months prior, Louise tripped on a rug and broke her hip, and her children insisted that she get a caretaker or move into a facility because she has no one to care for her; her husband, Ken, died five years ago. Tanner and Louise have an awkward conversation over tea, agreeing to their arrangement. Tanner returns to her parents’ house and reflects on her college soccer career, which ended after she horribly fractured her leg falling off a balcony due to a faulty railing at a fraternity house. Without her soccer scholarship, she’s $10,000 short for tuition, so she can’t return to Northwestern. She’s bitter about her life circumstances and took the job with Louise after her mother kicked her out for shouting at her. Tanner’s coping mechanism is video games, which she plays for hours at a time.

The next day, Louise wakes up, still worried about the letter and considering the possibility of going on the run. She burns the letter, leading the fire alarm to go off as Tanner knocks on the door. Louise doesn’t let Tanner in, which prompts Tanner to climb the fence into the backyard and almost break in. Louise lets her in and blames the alarm on burnt toast. She shows Tanner to the guest room and gives her a rundown of her schedule, including cocktail hour at four o’clock daily. Tanner then plays video games for five hours, which stuns Louise.

The pair settles into their routine, until Louise’s handsome neighbor, August, arrives to work on Louise’s car. He goes to the back shed and not the garage and flirts with Tanner. Later that night, Louise sleepwalks into her car in the garage, but Tanner stops her. August asks Tanner out on a date but later stands her up.

A neighbor tells Tanner that Louise threatened her boyfriend with a gun and referenced having gone to jail. Jules assures Tanner that the gun is locked in Louise’s nightstand. Tanner puts on the news and sees a special report on a new suspect in a heist cold case from 1975 in which the famous Kinsey Diamond was stolen: a woman named Patricia Nichols, associate of mafia boss Salvatore D’Amato, who looks just like Louise on the age-progressed police image. Tanner convinces herself it’s a coincidence. Louise receives a strange and worrying phone call from George.

Louise wakes Tanner up and asks Tanner to be her getaway driver. Tanner suddenly thinks that Louise is Patricia and at first refuses, but she agrees when Louise offers her $10,000 from Ken’s life insurance—enough to return to Northwestern. Louise leads Tanner to the back shed, where she’s stored her secret convertible Jaguar. They take off onto the road as sirens shine in the rearview. On the road, Louise tells her that they must drive all the way to California.

Later, a day after Jules reported Louise missing, Jules’s brother, Charlie, goes over to the house and finds Tanner’s forgotten phone, leading to further concern. Jules calls the police again, sending a photo of Louise that one officer connects to the age-progressed photo of the heist suspect, Patricia.

Louise agrees to say that she kidnapped Tanner if the police catch them. They continue to St. Louis, and Louise worries that they won’t make it in time to save George. Tanner is alarmed by Louise’s gun in the glovebox. She makes them stop at the St. Louis Arch. She wants to go up, but Louise makes them get out of the line before they get to the metal detector, telling Tanner that she put her gun in her bag. A security guard questions them but lets them leave when he finds no weapon on them, and Tanner realizes that Louise lied because she’s afraid of heights. When they return to the Jaguar, Tanner finds the fuel pump broken.

The FBI picks up the case. Special Agent Lorna Huang thinks that Patricia did the jewel heist in 1975 and that Patricia is Louise. Agent Huang meets with the three Wilt siblings, Jules, Charlie, and Lucy, to do an interview. Lucy is the only one who knows about the Jaguar, and she believes that Louise isn’t Louise’s real name since a woman called her Patty during a college visit in Ohio.

Stuck for two days in St. Louis, Louise is anxious that Salvatore D’Amato will get to George first. Tanner and Louise bond when Tanner opens up about her past and what ended her soccer career. She fell off the balcony because a frat boy was aggressively hitting on her, and instead of standing up for herself, she backed away until she fell. She also told her coach that her teammate and best friend, Vee, does drugs, which got Vee suspended from the team. She misses Vee but thinks that Vee will never forgive her. Louise tells Tanner that she has a whole life ahead of her and she understands her anger, because women who aren’t angry aren’t paying attention to the world. She also tells Tanner that she went to jail for mail theft; it’s later revealed that she stole checks that her elderly neighbor was sending to wealthy televangelists to stop the neighbor from losing money that she needed. Louise, after Tanner has a fit of anger, teaches her how to shoot the gun.

The duo drives further, and when Tanner wants to stop, Louise announces that George is going to die. She also announces that the police are not after them, as Tanner has believed thus far since seeing the sirens; these sirens were actually for Louise’s neighbor’s abusive boyfriend whom Louise had threatened with the gun. Tanner and Louise stop in Nebraska for the night. Tanner gives Louise a massage for her hip, and later Louise has a night terror due to the Parkinson’s disease that she’s been hiding from Tanner. Louise admits that she’s afraid, and Tanner shares her fear of being broken and Louise reassures her.

At breakfast, a news broadcast announces them missing and wanted in connection to the 1975 heist. Louise didn’t know that the police were after them, and now the authorities know what car they’re in. Tanner tells Louise that she knows that she stole jewels, which alarms Louise. Louise gives the Jaguar to a hotel worker and calls a taxi, trying to leave Tanner behind, but Tanner insists on finishing their adventure.

The taxi drops them off at a church in Colorado, and the priest knows Louise as Patty, who helped his mother. He lets them stay at his sister’s house until August, Louise’s neighbor, arrives to drive them the rest of the way. He apologizes for standing Tanner up for their date, and they drive through the night to reach Redding, California. Special Agent Huang gets a report of their presence in Colorado and books a flight.

In California, the trio goes to a senior living facility, but they are turned away as visiting hours are over. They check into a motel, and Tanner and August share a room and a kiss. The next day, they return to the senior living facility and visit George, who turns out to be a woman and Louise’s best friend. They break George out and go to a motel. George and Louise talk, and George forgives Louise for their past. After a walk on the beach, Louise and George return to their room and find Salvatore waiting for them, demanding that Louise return what she stole from him. Tanner hears his voice through the adjoining room to her and August’s room, so she breaks down the door, holding Louise’s gun. She fires a shot and misses Salvatore. The FBI agents arrive.

In a flashback, the truth of the heist is revealed. In 1968, Salvatore married a woman named Betsy and abused her. When she was pregnant, she contacted George and Louise, who ran a whisper network that helped women to escape abusive situations. They planned to help Betsy escape, but she got angry and told Salvatore that she was leaving, and he beat her violently. She gave birth before passing away. Louise had promised Betsy to care for the baby, so she became Salvatore’s nanny and stole the baby, Jules, though George warned her not to. George and Louise also pulled off the jewel heist using Salvatore’s plans that Louise also stole. Salvatore sent a mafia man to retrieve Jules, but George and Louise shot him, though his body was gone when George returned for it. George and Louise split up, never to see each other again because of Louise’s decision.

In the present, Louise tells the FBI about stealing Jules but not about doing the heist. She thought that Tanner knew that she stole Jules, not jewels. No charges are pressed, and Louise and Tanner return home and have emotional reunions with their families. Later, Louise and George move into a senior care facility together, and Tanner works there, using her $10,000 from Louise to travel instead of going back to school. She reunites with Vee, who forgives her. Tanner goes to Louise as she’s dying and holds her, and Louise gives her an envelope. Louise’s children arrive, so Tanner leaves and opens the envelope at home, which contains the Kinsey Diamond. Louise tries to confess to her children about the heist, but they think that it’s her Parkinson’s talking. She thinks about the diamond and how now it’s Tanner’s turn to make the decisions.