Book ~ "Famous Last Words" (2025) Gillian McAllister

From Goodreads ~ It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there and in his place is a cryptic note.

Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband - doting father, eternal optimist - is the gunman.

What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says ...

Camilla has been off on maternity leave and is heading back to work. When she wakes up that morning, Luke, her husband, is nowhere to be found. He isn't answering texts and she then finds a short odd note from him. After she drops their daughter off at daycare, she goes to the office, excited to start her day. She's not there long before there is a hostage situation in a warehouse and police determine that Luke is involved. They arrive at Camilla's office to take her home. Things go wrong ... one hostage is released, two hostages are shot and killed and Luke has disappeared.

Seven years later, Luke is still missing and Cam is still trying to move on with her life. Not surprising it's hard because she still wonders what happened to make Luke kidnap and shoot the two hostages, which was out of character for him. And how the events unfolded still haunts Niall, the hostage negotiator.

I wasn't crazy about this story. I found it overly long and draggy. I could have done without Niall's side story of the break-up of his marriage and the time spent with a therapist still dealing with the hostage taking events and his marriage. There was so much of the book devoted to this. I can understand these things would bother him over the years but thought it could have been covered in a lot less detail. I could have also have done without all the time spend on Cam's older sister, Libby's desire to get pregnant. It didn't add to the mystery of what happened to Luke and why he did what he did, which to me was the point of the book.

It's written in third person perspective with a focus on Camilla and Niall. I didn't find Camilla overly likeable and I found Niall kind of boring. When the ending came (we finally find out what happened to Luke and why he did what he did), I thought "huh?" and I wasn't buying it. As a head's up, there is swearing.