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A review by justinkhchen
The Only One Left by Riley Sager
4.0
4 stars
Simmering intrigue with an explosive finale, The Only One Left is an atmospheric mystery that takes its time, until the final few chapters where reveals and twists are thrown at you from all directions (in an enjoyable way). Deviating from the silly campiness of his last two novels (which I do like unironically, particularly The House Across the Lake), this is a nice change of pace, aiming for something that's a little more subtle and archetypal. I will also add this is possibly the most mystery-centric novel I've read from Riley Sager; with how the overall narrative is structured, I would not label this as a thriller in any shape or form.
True to its gothic inspiration (moody houses + heroine in distress), the setting of The Only One Left is one of the most vivid Riley Sager has conjured thus far (the sunken town in The Last Time I Lied is another—too bad it was criminally underutilized in the actual plot). The desolation really sets the scene as the mystery surrounding the mansion and its occupants unravels. While I do think the cast not particularly memorable and rather generic, the deliberately paced plot is consistently engaging—the way the dots connect made up for the fact the dots themselves are very cookie-cutter.
At this point, a Riley Sager release is a summer staple with certain expectation, and that can be widely different for everyone. I know I have the opposite opinion when it come to the fan favorites (Lock Every Door is plain not good), and I actually started enjoying his novels when the bookish community thought he has lost it (Survive the Night, The House Across the Lake). So I kept an open mind with The Only One Left, and shockingly it delivered something that could potentially please the spectrum: a more mainstream structure like his earlier novels, but still contains the outlandish turns in his later work. Some readers think Riley Sager just writes the same thing over and over, but within the confine he has set up for himself, I'm impressed at how tonally diverse his novels are—already looking forward to next summer's release!
Simmering intrigue with an explosive finale, The Only One Left is an atmospheric mystery that takes its time, until the final few chapters where reveals and twists are thrown at you from all directions (in an enjoyable way). Deviating from the silly campiness of his last two novels (which I do like unironically, particularly The House Across the Lake), this is a nice change of pace, aiming for something that's a little more subtle and archetypal. I will also add this is possibly the most mystery-centric novel I've read from Riley Sager; with how the overall narrative is structured, I would not label this as a thriller in any shape or form.
True to its gothic inspiration (moody houses + heroine in distress), the setting of The Only One Left is one of the most vivid Riley Sager has conjured thus far (the sunken town in The Last Time I Lied is another—too bad it was criminally underutilized in the actual plot). The desolation really sets the scene as the mystery surrounding the mansion and its occupants unravels. While I do think the cast not particularly memorable and rather generic, the deliberately paced plot is consistently engaging—the way the dots connect made up for the fact the dots themselves are very cookie-cutter.
At this point, a Riley Sager release is a summer staple with certain expectation, and that can be widely different for everyone. I know I have the opposite opinion when it come to the fan favorites (Lock Every Door is plain not good), and I actually started enjoying his novels when the bookish community thought he has lost it (Survive the Night, The House Across the Lake). So I kept an open mind with The Only One Left, and shockingly it delivered something that could potentially please the spectrum: a more mainstream structure like his earlier novels, but still contains the outlandish turns in his later work. Some readers think Riley Sager just writes the same thing over and over, but within the confine he has set up for himself, I'm impressed at how tonally diverse his novels are—already looking forward to next summer's release!