Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words, a 2025 mystery and psychological thriller novel by Gillian McAllister, follows Camilla “Cam” Deschamps, whose life is thrown into turmoil when her husband, Luke, kills two people in a hostage situation. Seven years later, Luke has disappeared, and Cam still holds out hope for his innocence. Meanwhile, hostage negotiator Niall Thompson remains haunted by his failings during the negotiation with Luke, struggling to make sense of what happened. As the two start to find answers, the truth begins to unfold, revealing a web of crime, murder, and deceit. The novel explores themes of Appearance Versus Reality, The Ambiguity of Right and Wrong, and The Impact of Past Trauma on Identity.

This guide is based on the 2025 first US hardcover edition of the novel published by William Morrow.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, cursing, pregnancy loss, and death.

Plot Summary

Cam Deschamps, a literary agent, lives in London with her husband, Luke, and her nine-month-old baby, Polly. As the novel opens, she prepares to drop Polly at the nursery for the first time and return to work. Throughout the morning, she hears nothing from Luke, growing increasingly anxious. She finds a mysterious note from him that says: “It’s been so lovely with you both” (6).

At work, Cam can’t reach Luke or shake the feeling that something is wrong. On the news, she sees a hostage situation unfolding near Luke’s office. The police arrive and tell Cam that Luke is holding three people hostage in a warehouse. They show her a video of a man with a gun pacing in front of three people with bags over their heads. 

Niall Thompson, a hostage negotiator with the London police, feels annoyed at the lack of true crises that require his services. His wife, Vivienne, criticizes his obsession with work and its impact on their marriage. When Niall receives the call about the hostage situation, he’s excited for a more intriguing job and cancels his plans with Viv.

At the warehouse, the officer in charge, Maidstone, tells Niall they have no contact with Luke. He shows Niall the video of Luke arriving at the warehouse with the hostages, tying them up along with the warehouse owner, Isabella Louis—the only hostage that has been identified. Maidstone notes that Isabella’s husband, George, is a police officer and the police need to take action immediately. Niall insists on establishing contact with Luke and talking to Cam first.

The officers question Cam at home, and she insists that her relationship with Luke is fine even as she silently recalls moments when he’s acted angry or agitated recently. When they show her a house listing he’s saved in his phone, she lies and says it’s a property they’ve been thinking of buying. She’s shocked by the revelation that Luke owns a gun, has recently wiped his computer, and failed to report a burglary that happened in their home a few weeks prior. The police finish searching and take her to the warehouse.

Niall buys coffee for Luke as a way to establish contact. He leaves it outside the warehouse and hears Luke sobbing inside. He pleads with Luke to talk to him, but Luke just asks him to tell Cam that he loves her.

When Cam arrives, Niall asks her to call the warehouse’s landline. Isabella answers, signaling to Niall that Luke is nearby. George arrives, angry and panicked, yelling at Luke and promising to kill him. The phone goes dead.

Outside, Cam sees the doors of the warehouse open. Isabella emerges, still with a bag over her head. She tells the officers Luke let her go because she wasn’t needed. As they talk, two gunshots go off behind them.

Niall rushes into the warehouse. They find the dead bodies of two hostages but Luke is gone. Niall vows to himself to hunt Luke down and punish him. When Niall gets home, there’s a note from Viv explaining that she’s left him for canceling plans on her birthday.

Cam visits the house that her husband saved on his phone. The owner tells her he doesn’t know Luke and insists she leave. 

Seven years later, Luke is still missing. Cam oscillates between feeling frustrated, angry, and sad that Luke is gone. Deep down, she still believes he’s innocent.

Cam starts dating a man named Charlie but can’t stop thinking about Luke. She dislikes the person she’s become since Luke disappeared. She begins using her maiden name again and tries to become more extroverted, hiding her past.

At dinner with Charlie, Cam gets a text message and an email with coordinates and a time for later that night. Believing the messages are from Luke, she goes to the location but doesn’t find anything.

Niall stopped working as a negotiator after the hostage case with Luke. He now works as a regular investigator but continues to fixate on Luke’s case and track Cam’s phone. He intercepts the text message before Cam gets it, changes the time from eight o’clock to nine, and goes to the location in Cam’s place. He finds an empty envelope with a phone number on it. He tries to text it and gets blocked.

Niall suffers from frequent nightmares. He sees a therapist, Jess, but refuses to talk about work or his marriage. He grapples with Viv’s accusation that he was too obsessed with work for them to have a proper relationship.

Cam and Niall each uncover information separately about Luke’s case. Cam learns that Luke went to a funeral for a boy named Alexander, who was found dead alongside another teenager. She goes to Alexander’s grave and his parents’ house, but his father insists that he never knew Luke.

Niall learns that Luke was in contact with a man named Harry, who sells “protection” to his clients. After digging on the dark web, Niall finds past messages between Luke and Harry in which Luke is desperate for protection against two hitmen forcing him to go to a warehouse. Niall deduces that Luke was not the perpetrator but the victim, defending himself from the two men who wore bags over their heads to hide their identities. He goes to his boss, who insists they can’t spend any more money on an old case.

Cam immerses herself in her work, fixating on a new novel from one of her authors, Adam. It follows the lives of two teenagers from wealthy crime families who are murdered in a drug deal. It centers on the idea of a “good” person being caught in a “bad” situation, and Cam can’t help but make comparisons to her own life.

Niall reaches out to Cam, and the two share information. Cam feels relieved to learn that Luke might not be the murderer that everyone believes he is. She tells Niall about the plot of Adam’s book. Niall looks in the police database and finds a report that wasn’t recorded seven years ago when he checked. Niall suspects George—the only person connected to the warehouse who also had access to the police database. Niall confirms that George manipulated the database through a contact in the tech department.

Meanwhile, Cam goes to a publishing event with Charlie to talk with Adam about his new book. Adam says he never sent her a book, and Cam realizes that the book is a message from her husband.

Cam returns home anxious to finish the book, but Charlie insists on staying. She sees Charlie touch the book and finds a message on his phone from George. She realizes Charlie’s involved in the crime, finds Luke’s gun in the yard, injures Charlie, and flees.

Niall waits at George’s home for several hours until George and Isabella leave. He hears them talking about going to Dungeness to find Luke. Niall follows them and shoots George when he breaks into a lighthouse to kill Luke. To his surprise, Luke and Cam are not inside.

Using Luke’s book, Cam learns that Luke was never in Dungeness—he’s hiding in St. Luke’s near the coordinates he originally sent her. The two reunite and Luke tells her how he survived over the last seven years. They go to Dungeness, where they lie for Niall, insisting that he killed George to defend them. Charlie also vouches for Cam, admitting that he was stalking her and that she shot him in self-defense.

Seven years later, Niall has rekindled his relationship with Viv. He admits that his work life had consumed him, and vows to put her first. He works as a trainer for other hostage negotiators in Bogota.

Cam and Luke are reunited and both are acquitted of all charges. Though it has taken years for Luke to fit in with their family again, Cam feels confident that they’re happy and that everything they went through was worth it so they could be together.