| Category: | Fiction - Mystery- Sleuth |
|---|---|
| Author: | June Gillam |
| Publisher: | Gorilla Girl Ink |
| Publication Date: | September 25, 2025 |
| Number of Pages: | 378 |
| ISBN-10: | 1732464294 |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1732464292 |
Fallen Kings: Unholy Secrets by June Gillam is
set during one sweltering summer, the sixth book in the Hillary Broome
mystery that stretches from a Pride parade in Sacramento to the cobblestone streets
of Rome. Professor and reluctant sleuth Hillary travels to Italy with her
husband Ed, her estranged mother Paisley, and her teenage daughter Claire for
what should be a dream vacation: a college tour, basketball camp, and gelato.
Instead, Dei Patris, a secret brotherhood of traditionalist men determined to “save”
women they deem dangerous, kidnaps Claire. Now Father Tommaso's brotherhood has targeted a
nun marching for women’s ordination, a midwife who supports abortion access, and
now a proud lesbian teen. As Hillary races through convents, catacombs, and
vineyards to find her daughter before a literal trial by fire, courageous sisters, detectives, and her own surprising mother help her. Meanwhile, she confronts the
childhood abandonment she has carried for decades and inches toward a
forgiveness she has always refused.
June Gillam surprises readers in how she juggles multiple viewpoints: Hillary, the tormented Father Tommaso, spirited Sister Fredericka,
even young kidnapper Xavier, and she pulls it off beautifully, granting this
cozy-thriller hybrid an unsettling intimacy. The Italian worldbuilding is
deliciously sensory, with frescoed churches, sizzling steaks in restaurant
cellars, and earthquake-rattled hilltop abbeys. The pacing builds patiently
from domestic tension to a genuinely harrowing climax, with Paisley’s
garrote-wielding heroics making it all exciting. Fallen Kings explores religious extremism, misogyny, and who controls women's bodies, and these themes are intertwined in an intricate plot with payoffs like the reveal about Xavier's parentage, making it a delightful read. Admittedly, the villains’ rhetoric
occasionally grows heavy, and a few coincidences might be convenient for some readers, but the
emotional currents are too deep for the reader to pull out: daughters, mothers, and the price
of control. Fans of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code will love the
conspiracy and ancient abbeys, while the conflict with the kidnapped daughter will
resonate with fans of Karin Slaughter's Pretty Girls. This big-hearted
thriller is a page-turner, a crime fiction with a conscience.
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