‘Our Last Resort’ by Clémence Michallon

Published by Elliott & Thompson,
7 August 2025. 
ISBN: 978-1-78396928-9 (PB)

In a luxury resort set in the harsh Escalante Desert, Utah, Frida and Gabriel reconnect after a long parting. At first, as a reader, you are not quite sure of their relationship, nor why they were apparently estranged. But things seem good.

Of course, as this is crime fiction, the sense of calm and wellbeing doesn’t last long. One of the guests in the resort is murdered, and Gabriel is the prime suspect. Frida is convinced of his innocence - or is she?

Through a dual timeline - the present and a past which unfolded twenty-five years before - we learn that Frida and Gabriel grew as close as siblings when being raised in an abusive cult. The trauma of their upbringing was compounded by the trauma of their eventual escape, and they are both deeply damaged individuals.

Clémence Michallon balances the two narratives with a deft and confident hand, playing out the strands of the stories with just the right amount of revealing and withholding to keep the reader on their toes, until the eventual resolution arrives with a sense of complete rightness.

This, Michallon’s second novel, is a fitting follow-up to the highly acclaimed The Quiet Tenant. What next, I wonder? 
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Reviewer: Sarah Williams

Clémence Michallon is the author of The Quiet Tenant, an international bestseller published in 33 languages and shortlisted for the International Association of Crime Writers’ 2023 Hammett Prize. Our Last Resort is her second thriller. Both books have been optioned for TV series by Blumhouse TV. Clémence studied at Sciences Po in Paris, City University in London and Columbia University in New York and is an award-winning journalist for publications including The New York Times Book Review, Time Magazine and The Independent. Clémence was born and raised in Paris and has lived in New York since 2014. She is now a dual French and American citizen and lives in New York and Rhinebeck with her husband and their dog Claudine.

Sarah Williams has been a professional writer for most of her adult life. She started writing under the name of Sarah Matthews, publishing translations from the French, as well as children’s information books, school textbooks, and school editions of authors such as Conan Doyle and Mark Twain. Most recently, she turned to crime and has published How to Write Crime Fiction (Robinson). There are also two crime novels in the offing.

Follow her on Substack at https://sarahwilliamsauthor.substack.com