“It is June 21, the longest day of the year, and the life of new mother Camilla is about to change forever. A hostage situation is developing in London. The police tell her Luke is involved—but he isn’t a hostage. Her husband—doting father, eternal optimist—is the gunman.”
Famous Last Words ⎼ Gillian McAllister
Another classic Gillian McAllister thriller has been given to us! And it holds to the McAllister standard, a twisty, emotional, heart-pounding story of love, loss, and determination. I finished the first chapter and knew I was thoroughly hooked, and ended up reading the whole book in one sitting.
McAllister is an expert on creating well-developed, nuanced female main characters, and Camilla was no exception. With her point of view, we get to experience her frustration with a missing husband, then her nervousness that something has happened, then her world turning upside down when she’s told he’s taken three people hostage. As we follow her over the course of seven years, we see her still struggling to believe her husband willingly held people at gunpoint. Her determination to figure out what happened leads the plot for the majority of the story, which I really enjoyed.
In addition to Cam and her missing, then presumed dead, husband Luke, we spend a lot of time with Cam’s sister, Libby and Cam’s daughter, Polly. With Luke gone, Libby becomes Cam and Polly’s support system, even seven years later. Libby is a fully developed character with her own issues and minor subplot, which helped keep me fully invested in the story as a whole.
The plot mainly focuses on Cam’s secret investigation, and she’s eventually joined by Niall, the hostage negotiator who worked on Luke’s case. Niall and Cam have both been haunted by the unsolved ending to the hostage situation, which ended with a missing Luke and two dead men. However, since so much time has passed, they seem to be the only two who care. As they work together and slowly piece together the pieces Luke left behind, the tension continues to heighten to an incredibly fast-paced ending.
I’d highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a mystery-thriller. If you’ve read any of McAllister’s other works and liked them, this will be a perfect choice for you. I’d also recommend it to anyone who loves police procedurals in general!
Thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
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