Riley Sager (Lock Every Door; Final Girls) furthers his reputation for innovative, highly original plots in The Only One Left, his seventh novel. Evoking Shirley Jackson's classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Sager invigorates the timeless creepy-mansion trope, melding the gothic novel with a clever thriller that delves into the debilitating effects of rumors, legends, and presumption of guilt. The Only One Left, set in Maine during 1983, introduces home-health aide Kit McDeere, fired after her previous patient died. Kit, broke and living with her father who ignores her, reluctantly becomes caregiver for the paralyzed 71-year-old Lenora Hope, who lives in the mansion Hope's End, "a marvel of Gilded Age excess" high on a perilous cliff. When she was 17 years old, Lenora was the only survivor of an attack in which her parents and sister were murdered. Lenora was the logical suspect, but police lacked evidence. She has been a recluse for decades, living with a few servants, and the subject of vandalized walls and a cruel schoolyard rhyme. Kit connects with Lenora, but comes to believe her patient is guilty.
The Only One Left unfolds at a pitch-perfect pace, at once both leisurely and brisk, as Kit learns more about the murders and Lenora. Sager accelerates the spooky factor: the more Kit delves into the past, the more the mansion seems to rebel, as if expelling its secrets and crumbling along with the cliff. Each unexpected twist enhances The Only One Left. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer