Famous Last Words

Gillian McAllister (born February 28, 1985) is a British author known for her mystery, thriller, and suspense novels. She trained for two years as a lawyer after graduating from the University of Birmingham in England. She wrote fiction in her spare time, recalling it as “by far the hardest time of [her] life, [her] memories of which are sitting in cold train stations at nine o’clock at night, writing on the floor of the waiting room with fingerless gloves on” (“My Story.” Gillian McAllister). After publishing her debut novel, Everything but the Truth (2017), she began writing full-time, publishing eight books that have all appeared in the top 20 on the British Sunday Times Bestseller List.

McAllister’s work takes a layered view of crime, exploring the motives and emotions of the perpetrators and their families, victims, lawyers, and police. For example, her 2023 novel Just Another Missing Person centers on the case of a missing person, Olivia Johnson. The point of view shifts between the detective investigating the case, the father and mother-in-law of another missing girl, and Olivia herself. In this way, McAllister offers a complex look at both the crime itself—which is more complicated than it originally appears—and the people impacted by it.