Our Last Resort

Psychological thrillers are a subgenre of suspense fiction that center on the inner workings of the human mind, often prioritizing characterization over graphic violence. They create suspense through ambiguity and secrecy. The plots are often structured around moral uncertainty and shifting perceptions of truth, which is reflected in their use of unreliable narrators and fragmented chronology. Themes typically probe manipulation, coercive control, obsession, and the aftereffects of trauma. Plot twists reframe earlier scenes and expose the gulf between perception and reality.

Psychological thrillers are a popular genre in both literature and film. Patricia Highsmith is widely considered the genre’s foundational figure, with Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley serving as canonical examples. Strangers on a Train features a complex, suspenseful plot and uses moral ambiguity to meditate on the nature of guilt. A successful novel in its own right, it was also adapted into a popular film by Alfred Hitchcock. The Talented Mr. Ripley, which was also made into a film, examines the nature of identity performance and duplicity. Both novels explore the genre’s interest in characters who blur the line between victim and perpetrator. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is another hallmark of the genre and examines the claustrophobia of domestic spaces as well as the inner struggles of its protagonist.

More recent authors, like Gillian Flynn and Tana French, continue to expand the genre by combining elements of both crime fiction and psychological thrillers. Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012), Sharp Objects (2006), and Dark Places (2009) fuse crime plotting with corrosive family dynamics and unreliable testimony. Similarly, French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels—a best-selling, six-book series that begins with In the Woods (2007)—are crime procedurals that feature characters whose memories and motives are untrustworthy. Flynn and French’s work exemplifies how psychological thrillers interrogate the nature of crime and the emotional damage it inflicts.

Clémence Michallon’s debut novel, The Quiet Tenant (2023), continues in this tradition by innovating on genre conventions. Rather than focusing on the serial killer’s perspective, this novel focuses on the women in his orbit by having them narrate the novel. It is told through multiple female perspectives and leverages secrecy and misdirection to increase suspense. It foregrounds the violence inherent in social power structures rather than focusing on spectacle.

Our Last Resort builds on Michallon’s interest in trauma and misperception. Its protagonists, Frida and Gabriel, are shaped by their childhoods spent in a cult and live under the weight of unresolved emotional and psychological trauma. Like The Quiet Tenant, this novel also foregrounds secrecy, as Frida both withholds significant truths and is as unreliable narrator. Additionally, ambiguity and plot twists—which are core elements of psychological thrillers—amplify the suspense. The novel also generates tension through an atmosphere of heightened emotion. Frida and Gabriel are both tightly wound characters, and the novel’s flashbacks to their time in the cult add to its intensity. Increasingly troubling revelations unfold incrementally, with past traumas complicating the events in the present timeline. Intimate confrontations and plot twists situate the novel within the tradition of psychological thrillers.