Review: The Only One Left by Riley Sager

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

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I’ve had some experience with this author’s work before, and while the premise is usually very good, my impression is that it doesn’t usually quite live up to my expectations. However, this time, it really did. The number of twists and turns were outrageous, and they were just on the brink of acceptable plausibility too, which was impressive for the number of times I had to experience that suspenseful emotional whiplash. Even though I picked this book up on a whim, I’m so glad I did, and honestly I’m not surprised I finally found one of Riley Sager’s books that I really enjoyed.

The Only One Left is based off a very charming schoolyard chant reproduced above, about the tale of Lenora Hope murdering her whole family at age seventeen. Our protagonist, Kit, who isn’t perfect herself, finds herself working to take care of the now very old Lenora Hope. Lenora had been sequestered away in her gigantic palatial home for over fifty years, and no one has seen her since. When Kit meets her, she finds out that Lenora only has the use of her left hand. But still, she can use it to communicate and tries to tell Kit the truth of what happened all those years ago. But is she telling the truth? And what secrets just beg to remain buried?

The characters were very excellent in this book. Each character was in depth and very nuanced for a thriller, and really developed over the course of the book as we found out about the past and the present of the Hope family. The book mostly revolves around Kit and Lenora, but the other characters were also well-explored, and also very appropriately suspicious and shady too. There were only a limited number of characters, but it was still very difficult to predict just how the story would come together, and what role each character had to play in the final outcome. The characters really furthered the plot, and I think it was executed really well. The relationship between Kit and Lenora really grew in this story, and it was interesting to see so much character development within a thriller.

The plot was also extremely well done, in my opinion. Essentially Lenora types out her story slowly but surely with the help of Kit, and we get to go back and forth between what Kit experiences in the present, as well as Lenora’s retelling of the past. The pages from the past were my favourite, and written in a really gripping manner. In fact, it was basically a thriller within a thriller, since Lenora liked to take her time in giving away all the facts. The pacing of both the present and the past were so well-executed that I had to finish the book so quickly. The momentum just kept building and building and this is one of those books were I was seriously hooked from the first few chapters all the way until the very, very end.

The plot made it so that the suspense was very well woven in, and the “tides” of the suspense really felt like I was pushed constantly towards finishing, and that I had to read chapter after chapter to get to the next part of the past. While that is not unusual for a thriller, what made this story more exciting was that the present was also quite thrilling, as Kit kept experiencing more mysterious things without any explanation.

I just also had to take a moment to talk about the climax, denouement, and ending here. The build-up was of course very good already, but I think the climax and denouement really worked for me. It was a plausible and very satisfying explanation, and nothing was simply waved off as a true red herring. Even the red herrings had good explanations! Of course, if you’re not a fan of having things over-explained, then this one may encroach on that a little bit. But on top of that, just when you think things are resolving, I want to say that there were what felt like five more twists and turns before the actual ending ending. Talk about an emotional roller coaster! While I will reserve judgment on how many of these final turns were actually necessary, I was just happy to be there along for the ride, and a ride it was. In that sense, it really gave me those Verity vibes, which I also really enjoyed.

Overall, this was an excellent psychological thriller that was coupled with a murder mystery. This was just my kind of book, and it definitely did not disappoint. If you’re looking for a complex but I think well-woven story that is a psychological thriller, this may be the one for you!

Overall Recommendations

The Only One Left revolves around a sad tale of a seventeen year-old girl, Lenora Hope, who was accused of slaughtering her whole family in cold blood over fifty years ago. Now Kit, a caregiver, is now asked to take care of Lenora, who hasn’t been seen out in public since the tragic death of her family. Lenora, who is mostly disabled, promises to tell Kit the truth of the past. But just what can Kit believe, for someone who is clearly capable of so much even in her incapacitated state? And what are the mysterious things happening around the estate, that seem to indicate to Kit that the past wants to remain buried? Find out in this exciting roller coaster of a thriller!