Famous Last Words
Famous Last Words
By: Gillian McAllister
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a new mom’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge]
I enjoyed McAllister’s book Wrong Place, Wrong Time, but had written in that review that I probably wouldn’t read any more of her books because of all the f-words. Well here I am. I read another one. I apparently didn’t remember my own advice.
And there were, indeed, some f-words in this one as well (though not as much as some other books)
But maybe it’s worth it? I don’t know.
I decided I like how Gillian (we’re on a first name basis right now) combines both the mystery and suspense of a thriller with some emotional mom/wife stuff in her books.
Gillian’s comment on Goodreads for this book is “a love story set in a hostage situation.” (Or rather ‘siege’ because, again, we’re very Brit here, not actually being seiged by an army in a fortress.)
In both books, she does a good job of drawing you into the character’s dilemma and emotional struggle with the conflict at hand and the internal risks of coming to terms with reality.
In Wrong Place, Wrong Time, we have a mother trying to figure out why her son stabbed a guy. In Famous Last Words, we have a wife (and mother) trying to figure out why her husband sieged three people, killed two (unidentified), and disappeared.
The book starts out with Cam being frustrated that her husband left the house and left her to do everything for their daughter, Polly’s, first day of day care when Cam goes back to work as a book editor. (I included this whole explanation because seriously, morning routine is the worst and how could you jet with no explanation!?!)
It doesn’t take long for her to see the news and see that her husband has a good excuse. He’s kinda in the middle of something. You know… a warehouse with his hostages. So the police have shown up to search their house and see if Cam has any knowledge of what Luke (her husband) is doing. (Duh, detective, if she was going to be involved she would have made him help with breakfast and drop offs and THEN go do the siege. Amateurs.)
That’s the first part of the book- the siege. (You’re gonna hear this word a lot.)
Then we jump ahead seven years. Luke has been missing this whole time. Cam is torn between presuming him to be dead and being able to move on with her life and wanting him to be alive because she still wants to believe he’s a good person and that he will come back to her.
“How, exactly, do you move on? she wants to say. Tell me. Tell me how to stop searching for answers. Tell me how to be fine with abandonment. Tell me how to embrace being a single parent. It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, not in these circumstances, not when you’re alone and disciplining and cooking and bedtiming and lying to your child every single day about who their father truly is.”
I’m not sure what single parenting has tried to crack up to be, but I think it’s always hard any way you slice it and I feel her struggle. When your loving husband does something that doesn’t make sense and no answers are ever figured out, how DO you move on from that?
Well after seven years, Cam gets an anonymous text with a set of coordinates and a time to meet. This sets off a whole new round of investigations where Cam sets aside ‘moving on’ in hopes that Luke is finally contacting her and she’ll finally discover what was behind the siege.
Oh yeah, and as per the title he has some famous last words: “It’s been so lovely with you both.” At first they don’t seem to allude to anything helpful. However, if anything, I was able to determine part of what was going on.
The thriller part of this is somewhat figuring out who the bad guys are, but it’s also just wanting to know the catalyst for the siege. You don’t really get the full story until close to the end so I like that Gillian didn’t reveal too much too early. It kept the suspense up.
It’s told in alternating POVs between Cam and Niall who was the hostage negotiator during the infamous siege. After the bad outcome of the situation, it’d been haunting Niall and he ends up doing some of his own investigating to figure out what went wrong and why his instincts steered him so wrong that fateful day. Cam and Niall’s lives obviously continue to cross one another.
A few things I liked:
I liked that Cam and Luke had their own inside jokes, like being ‘sweepy.’ I was realizing that my husband and I have been married long enough now that we have some inside jokes that we have no memory of why or where they came from. Perhaps we will adopt sweepy to add to our collection.
I liked how she described her boss Stuart: “he has been, for the past couple of years, that most toxic of things: a gym convert”
I liked the side relationship of Cam with her sister, Libby, and how there was a closeness to their relationship but also growth as they navigated Libby’s infertility struggles. Dysfunctional and suspicious family members tend to be the norm for thrillers so I like that her and her sister’s relationship had its challenges but was generally very stable. I was also able to relate somewhat to Libby’s infertility feelings. I never had to do IVF or struggle for as long as her but I still understand the jealousy and feelings towards others that you know are unwarranted but nevertheless how you feel because why can’t your body make and hold a baby?! It’s such a tough thing to endure.
One plot criticism:
The ‘hiding out’ period of seven years feels like a lot to survive. I can’t really imagine someone doing what he did for so long without going insane. I wonder if shortening that time period would have made more sense, although I think that time frame was chosen because of the laws about declaring a missing person deceased. So I guess this is just one of those things where you just accept that after seven years there’s still just a sleeping bag instead of a bed and of course he’s only spoken out loud five instances in all that time but is still a normal human being. Moving on.
One other criticism:
“The trainers he wanted— Vejas— came into fashion and then went out again.” Um… I was literally told last week to buy these Veja shoes. I ended up getting a pair from someone, but you’re telling me they’re already out of fashion!? Or is the US behind? Or maybe this is just the speculative fiction part of the novel and everything is fine. Talk about the biggest twist of the book…!
Obligatory Words I Learned Section
Jaffa cakes: Cam and Luke’s ‘eating your feelings’ treat that is made of sponge, orange-flavored jam, and chocolate. I guess my feelings are more pure and salty instead of spongy- bring on the chips and straight up chocolate
fisselig: a German word meaning ‘flustered to the point of incompetence”; I don’t know how to use it in a sentence but if I could I would all the time
copper: apparently it’s not disrespectful to call police officers ‘coppers’ in England or else Gillian would probably be in jail right now
pensioner: probably the equivalent of a US snowbird but they just stay put and get to be called by their source of income instead of something prettier
dressing gown: that fancy little (but probably big) robe that men wear to smoke a pipe or something? I’m trying to imagine any male I know owning a dressing gown but I can’t… is the American version of this concept just sweatpants and a hoodie?
mange-touts: sugar peas; but if I didn’t look this one up I would have guessed it was a nasty looking fish
five-a-side: an indoor football… well soccer… game with five people to a side; good thing all sports have a different number of people on a side or this could get real confusing
lock-up: a storage unit (that someone was staying in… not to be confused with jail, because he was definitely not in jail as that was the failure of the last seven years for the coppers….. Police. I can’t say it without feeling like a criminal)
Recommendation
Well I thought I wasn’t going to read any more of Gillian McAllister’s books but then I forgot what I thought and now I think maybe I will.
I don’t like the swearing, but I think she weaves a good story and taps into both my desire for suspense and mystery and my complex mom feelings where I agree that every child that dies is Polly (well, my Pollies) and all parents are me and how could my kids ever live without knowing their dad and could my parenting ever turn my kid into a stabber?!
So I guess read at your own risk, but to quote myself from my review of her other book: “Swearing aside, I can’t think of a reason not to read the book. Unless you don’t like time travel.” Whoops. Not that last part. No time travel here! Well. I guess they jump seven years into the future but we’ll give that a time travel pass.
Also, if you love books where husbands disappear and leave something behind and the wife is left with their daughter to figure out what he’s mixed up in, you should read The Last Thing He Told Me.
[Content Advisory: 36 f-words, 20 s-words]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
This book releases February 25, 2025. You can pre-order/order a copy of this book using my affiliate link below.
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