The Only One Left
The Only One Left
By: Riley Sager
[Fulfills prompt: ‘A book with a direction in the title’ for the Shelf Reflection 2026 Reading Challenge]
[This book was nominated for the ‘Best Mystery/Thriller’ category of the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge ]
“If she wants to tell me what happened, I’m willing to listen. Even though I suspect most of it will be lies. Or, worse, the complete, terrifying truth.”
**shocked face**
What in the 80’s murder fest just happened?
Somehow I missed this gem when it released in 2023, but lucky for me I got to it this year!
This was wild. Not many books have twists that have me feverishly flipping back pages to see what signs I missed, but this one delivered. Sager got me good. And I loved it! I’m not a gasper, but if I was, there were at least two times where I would have physically gasped.
The Only One Left is Verity meets Mad Mabel meets The Girl Upstairs.
It has Verity’s mysterious immobile person with dark secrets we can’t trust and a written (typed) confession that reveals all.
It has Mad Mabel’s old lady with a reputation for having murdered her rich family but never enough evidence to prove it.
And it has The Girl Upstairs’ haunted house on the cliffs of Maine in October with a ‘ghost’ from the past seeking justice.
This one had me reading long into the night. There really wasn’t a lot of action, but the suspense of what actually happened all those years ago and the atmospheric slow burn reveals were done really well.
It was interesting to have this book set in the 80’s because it meant the tech wasn’t there to have ‘solved’ some of the problems. It made the characters at the house feel more isolated from reality and help.
That setting also pushed the ‘back then’ chapters to the 1920’s which is also an atmospheric era that added to the Gothic vibe.
Our main character is Kit McDeere— a caregiver coming off of her own work-scandal (having lost a patient to her own negligence). She has run out of employment options and forced to take the job of in-home care for Lenora Hope. Now in her seventies, Lenora has lived a recluse life in her family home— a deteriorating mansion on the cliffs— with the reputation of having killed her parents and sister back when she was seventeen. There was never enough evidence to prove it but that didn’t stop schoolyard chants to be created and sung decade after decade:
“‘It wasn’t me,’ Lenora said,
But she’s the only one not dead.”
Kit battles back and forth with wanting to believe Lenora is innocent because she knows what it’s like to be wrongly accused, but she’s also unsure if she can trust Lenora. Certain things feel off in the house, she hears noises and sees shadows from Lenora’s room that have her questioning reality.
When Kit discovers Lenora can type on a typewriter with her one good hand, over the course of several days Lenora ends up detailing to Kit what really happened that fateful night all those years ago.
But then Kit finds out that the caregiver before her was possibly pushed off the terrace to her death. The truth might be too dangerous for her to know.
Is it worth the risk to find out the truth about Lenora or will Kit be the next one to go over the edge?
I will add that it was a little strange to read this book while I am also in the middle of Jen Wilkin’s book called Dust to Dust which talks about aging and caring for those who are aging. Wilkin’s book doesn’t quite prepare you for caring for a potential murderer so I think I had a little subconscious conflict while going back and forth thinking— Jen… but WHAT IF you don’t know what these shady elderly folk did in their past?? Ah. But I digress.
One other random thought because I like to notice when the wildly different books I read close together have odd similarities. Other than the caregiving connection, there was a line in this book: “Go to Paris and fall in love, then write all about it.” I just found that ironic having recently read Meet Me in Paris by Kristin Harmel which is pretty much that exact scenario.
Recommendation
Yes. I definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a suspenseful psychological thriller that will shock the eyelashes right off your blinking eyes.
[Content Advisory: 6 f-words, 10 s-words, 5 b-words; there are a few sexual affairs that take place, most aren’t detailed except for a couple situations with the father and a couple of the servants]
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