Author Clémence Michallon on the inspiration behind her latest psychological thriller, Our Last Resort . . .
A few years ago, I interviewed the brilliant Taylor Jenkins Reid and asked her about her evolution as a writer—more specifically, how her literary explorations had led her to Malibu Rising, her latest novel at the time.
She took me through her previous books, explaining how they’d shaped her as a writer, which depths they’d enabled her to explore, and what questions remained unanswered. The process of assembling the big pieces of a novel, she said, was like filling a sandbox. That metaphor stayed with me. Years later, after publishing my debut thriller The Quiet Tenant, it was time for me to fill my own sandbox.
The Quiet Tenant, which came out in June 2023, is set in the winter in the state of New York, where I reside. That means it’s always cold in that book—the ground is frozen; the sun sets early. The Quiet Tenant is a captivity story crossed with a serial killer story, so its settings are few and bare: there is a house, a garden shed, a restaurant… and that’s pretty much it.
I loved working on that book. It was and remains one of the most intense, fulfilling creative experiences I’ve ever had as a writer. Yes, and: when the time came to think about the next book, I decided to change things up. I wanted to go somewhere warm. I wanted to go somewhere beautiful. I wanted to go to a place people travel to on purpose.
Slightly… unsettling
My mind traveled back to a gorgeous hotel I visited with my parents fifteen years ago, tucked in a remote corner of the desert in Utah. That hotel is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s also slightly… unsettling.
For starters, the resort is accessible only by a small access road, so well hidden that we missed it several times and required specific instructions over the phone in order to finally find it. Then, there’s the small matter of the desert, which is impossible to forget. Being in the resort means all your needs are fulfilled. You are looked after, utterly pampered. Yet all around you is a climate I can only describe as inhospitable to human life. It’s hot and arid and there are coyotes. You don’t have immediate access to your car. You’re miles away from a major airport. Simply put: you can’t make a quick escape.
What would it look like, I thought, if I set a murder story in a hotel much like this one? The idea implanted itself in my head and I couldn’t dislodge it. That’s always a sign. I had my setting.
Next, I needed some characters. Almost everything I write, I’m learning, seeks to answer this question: “How well do you ever know the people you love?” I knew a murder would happen at a hotel, and I knew it would cause one person (this became my main character Frida) to ponder whether someone they hold dear (her chosen brother Gabriel) is capable of murder.
Bang Bang
That’s when a song started playing in my head. When I started looking closer at Frida and Gabriel, trying to understand the kinds of people they were, my brain, for some reason, kept going back to “Bang Bang” by Nancy Sinatra. I’ve always been fascinated by this song and the story it tells, of some kind of childhood friendship gone horribly wrong. My mind was made up: Gabriel and Frida would be siblings of some kind.
I wanted my story’s emotional stakes to be as high as I could make them. If Frida answered that central question—Is Gabriel capable of murder?—with yes, then it had to signal the end of her world as she knew it. This meant I needed Frida and Gabriel to share an uncommonly intense bond, stronger than regular family ties.
What if those two had grown up in a cult together? I wondered. What if they’d survived that ordeal together? And what if all that made it impossible for them to imagine a world without the other in it? That would certainly do it.
This also opened an interesting possibility: What if I told Gabriel and Frida’s stories in dual timelines, alternating between the murder investigation at the hotel and their past in the cult?
One of my favorite crime novels, Jessica Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive, is told in dual timelines. In The Quiet Tenant, I had used multiple points of view, telling the story of a male serial killer exclusively through female voices. Storytelling is an important tool to me as a writer. I find it almost impossible to figure out what story I’m trying to tell without also figuring out how I’m going to tell it. I don’t outline, so making those decisions is in large part how I get my bearings before I start writing. Dual timelines felt judicious as well as exciting. And there I had it: my sandbox was full.
(c) Clémence Michallon
Clémence Michallon can be found on Instagram at @clemencemichallon
Author photograph (c) Gabrielle Malwski
About Our Last Resort by Clémence Michallon:
From Clémence Michallon, the bestselling author of The Quiet Tenant, comes a compulsive new psychological thriller – the perfect holiday read
Fifteen years ago, Frida and her brother Gabriel escaped from a cult. Once so close they were able to finish each other’s sentences, a sudden, unspeakable tragedy caused them to drift apart. Now, on holiday at the stunningly luxurious Ara Hotel, they finally have a chance to reconnect between dips in the pool and hikes on spectacular desert trails. It all feels like paradise – until a young woman is found dead.
When the local police arrive and put the resort into lockdown, Gabriel becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation. At first Frida’s belief in his innocence is unwavering – but as the evidence mounts against him, she is forced to confront long-buried memories from their traumatic upbringing, their dramatic escape, and the secret they swore to keep forever.
Alternating between past and present timelines, the plot builds toward a shattering climax that uncovers the fate of the murdered Ara guest and reveals the shocking past that Gabriel and Frida have been hiding for years.
Taut, gripping, and intense, Clémence Michallon’s Our Last Resort is a nailbiter that keeps you guessing until the final page, cementing her status as a major new talent in the genre.
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