Booksology I loved The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon. The tone of the book itself beguiled me and I note (in my review) I comment on a sense of ponderance. I didn’t enjoy her latest release Our Last Resort quite as much but it does offer the same weighty themes and take place amidst a sense of impending doom. Unfolding in three different timelines Michallon again slowly drip-feeds facts from the past into the present, with Frida our narrator torn between a kindredness she feels towards her chosen-brother Gabriel and the impact that a childhood characterised by coercion, control and thwarted trust has going into adulthood.
Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon Published by Knopf on 08/07/2025 Source: Purchased Genres: Crime Fiction ISBN: 1524712922 Pages: 320 Goodreads
Frida and Gabriel arrive seeking a fresh start at the stunning Ara Hotel in the secluded desert of Escalante, Utah. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, they’ve grown apart in recent years after a sudden, unspeakable tragedy. Now, at the luxe resort, they are ready to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise—until the dead body of a beautiful young woman who was vacationing at the Ara with her powerful, much older husband is discovered.
When the local police arrive and suspicion quickly falls on Gabriel, Frida is forced to revisit memories from their upbringing in a cloistered cult in upstate New York, their dramatic escape, and the scandal that followed. Frida’s belief in Gabriel’s innocence never wavered at the time, but now even she can’t ignore the evidence mounting against him.
We learn that Gabriel and Frida grew apart a decade earlier after the death of Gabriel’s wife in unexplained circumstances. Officially it was ruled an accident but the media pointed the finger at Gabriel and he moved across the country to escape the attention. Only six years before that Gabriel and Frida escaped a cult, the (then) 18 year-olds setting off some tragic events in their wake. Both have managed to build new lives but the past looms large in the way they view the world.
Now in their early thirties they’ve reunited at a luxurious resort because Gabriel wants to participate in a documentary about their childhood and Frida is trying to understand his motivation. She’s finding it hard to pin him down for the conversation when a young woman’s body is found. Frida overheard the woman and her older media mogul husband fighting the night before and shares that information with police. It brings Frida and Gabriel to their attention however and suddenly Gabriel is also a suspect. It’s unfathomable to Frida but she realises the police are aware of the circumstances of the death of Gabriel’s wife and she catches Gabriel in several lies in his interviews with the police.
I enjoyed the whodunnit element here, with Frida unpicking clues herself, helped when Gabriel finally shares his secrets with her. Frida of course has her own and has to work out if she believes in her brother and (if so) how she will prove his innocence.
Frida’s an engaging lead and I liked the way Michallon takes readers back and forth in time, with the pair’s first meeting 25 years earlier and life together since. Like in The Quiet Tenant, Michallon (through Gabriel and Frida) are forced to ponder the nature of someone they believe in and trust. Is someone all good or all bad, or can they be both? Even inadvertently… in their own case.
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