Q&A with Gillian McAllister

 

Photo by Bill Waters

 

 

Gillian McAllister is the author of the new novel Famous Last Words. Her other novels include Wrong Place Wrong Time. She lives in Birmingham, England.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Famous Last Words, and how did you create your characters Cam and Niall?

 

A: I have been exploring the idea of writing an action thriller but told through a more female lens - less explosions and gunfire and more - what happens when it's your marriage that is detonated? What do you do if your husband commits a crime that makes you notorious?

 

Cam - the wife - came to me very naturally as a woman ill-equipped to handle the spotlight, but Niall - the hostage negotiator - took more time. I'm not ashamed to say I entirely based him on a hostage negotiator that I got to know through research. 

 

Q: The writer Andrea Mara called the book an “incredibly page-turning mystery wrapped up in a thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of a most unusual kind of grief.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I was so honoured to receive that quote. I do hope she's right about the grief. Cam's husband does something violent and shocking, which is a more complex and - to me - interesting set up than more conventional grief in terms of exploring complexities and human nature. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to include a hostage siege as a key element in the novel?

 

A: I really hadn't seen one done before in a domestic thriller. I had seen them in big blockbuster movies, and in more male action-led fiction, but not in the way I wanted to do it. Moment-by-heartbreaking-moment. 

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I started emailing a hostage negotiator and - well, long story short, I ended up on a hostage negotiation course! It began as proper police-based research but ended up as something much more profound: that course taught me a lot, about how to talk to people, how to listen, how to parent... 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm just finishing up edits on a novel coming early next year, about two parents whose teenage daughter is kidnapped on holiday. They receive a ransom, which says only: “Don't tell the police.”

 

The father wants to tell the police, but the mother decides that she, and she alone, is going to meet the kidnappers, and deal directly with them, no matter the cost to her. And what they want from her isn't a ransom in a traditional sense... 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I'm also working on a 2027 novel which came to me almost fully formed! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Gillian McAllister.