Complicity: understanding the last chapter

[Mike]

I was curious if anyone has any views on the last chapter of complicity. Note this is likely to result in spoilers.

I have just finished Complicity (I'll be writing a review sometime later) and was intrigued by the way Banks wrote the final chapter. Throughout the book all the Cameron sections were written in the first person (as an unreliable narrator) and all the Adam sections were written in the second person. Then the final chapter is written from Cameron's perspective but it is written in the second person.

I was wondering whether His final decision, to let Adam go, makes him complicit in everything Adam has done up to that point and Banks is reinforcing that idea by using the same style for Cameron in the end that has been used for Adam all along.

Any thoughts?

[Iain]

I think you're right that Banks is showing Cameron's complicity. I would go further and say he's showing that Cameron implicitly agrees with what Andy's done and his reasons for doing it. That maybe Cameron would have done it himself if he'd thought of it / had the guts / wasn't such an armchair revolutionary. It's so easy for the police and for the reader to believe that Cameron could be the suspect because he has the same background, the same motivations and the same politics as Andy. With the exception of the military training and the episode from their past, everything that turns Andy into a killer is present in Cameron. The last chapter really highlights that.

[Mike]

Yes I'd agree and my thought is that switching to second person for Cameron stresses it further and maybe, just maybe, by using the second person, which does put you in the protagonist's head much more firmly than first or third person, just maybe he's suggesting that we, the readers, are also complicit in allowing these 'bad' people to thrive in the first place.

Or maybe I'm pushing it a little too far... :)