- Source: The Only One Left
The Only One Left is a 2023 murder mystery/horror novel by American author Todd Ritter, writing under the pen name Riley Sager. The plot concerns a woman who takes a job caring for elderly invalid Lenora Hope, who was accused decades ago of murdering her parents and younger sister. She slowly unravels the truth behind the Hope murders and a missing nurse.
Plot
Kittredge "Kit" McDeere is a 30-something caregiver accused of fatally overdosing her mother, who was dying of painful stomach cancer. The only job she can get is acting as a home health aide to Lenora Hope, an old woman who, like Kit, was once accused of murdering her family. The job is open because the previous nurse, Mary Milton, disappeared one night a week previously, leaving all her things behind.
Kit takes the job and moves to Hope's End, Lenora's decrepit mansion. She meets the servants: nanny Mrs. Baker, Archie the cook, Jessie the housemaid, and Carter Mayhew, the groundskeeper, who believes himself to be the illegitimate grandson of Lenora Hope and thus heir to the Hope family fortune.
Within days, Kit realizes that Lenora wishes to tell her story. Since Mrs. Hope is an invalid with limited use of her hands, Kit is tasked with assisting to type out the story of the Hope family, particularly Lenora and her sister Virginia. The text of Lenora's confession appears in the form of interstitial chapters interpolated throughout the novel.
Kit discovers the body of Mary Milton on the beach below Hope's End. Detective Vick, the man who investigated Kit over her mother's death, questions Kit. Kit realizes that Lenora typed out her full story to Mary Milton, which is why Mary was killed. Realizing that Mary likely took a blood sample from Lenora for the purpose of making a paternity test, Kit accuses Carter of murdering Mary. Running home for protection, Kit discovers that her own father has Lenora's confession. She realizes that her father, Patrick McDeere, is the father of Virginia's child.
Returning to Hope's End, Kit confronts Mrs. Baker, who admits to being the real Lenora Hope. The real Mrs. Baker took the baby to Canada, married, and raised him as "Grandmother Baker". He married, had a child, and died in 1982. The woman Kit knows as "Lenora" is actually Virginia, who switched places with her sister and bribed their family doctor to declare Virginia dead, thus receiving both girls' trust funds.
Patrick goes to Hope's End and attempts to kill Virginia, who is the only person who knows that he stabbed the girls' mother, Evangeline Hope, but Mrs. Baker (Lenora) prevents it. Patrick admits to Kit that it was he who helped his wife commit suicide, and Kit is innocent.
The cliff on which Hope's End sits collapses and begins taking the house with it. Kit rescues Virginia with the help of Patrick, and Lenora and Patrick walk back into the toppling house to themselves to be killed as the house topples into the sea.
Virginia goes to live with Kit. Three months later, Virginia leaves Kit's home and leaves a goodbye letter explaining that she was in fact, not paralyzed and had full bodily function since four months after her attempted hanging by suicide during the time of the original murders. She reveals that she has left to travel the world with Jessie, who is revealed as her granddaughter, the daughter of her long lost son. Virginia later sends another letter and invites Kit and Archie to join the two in Paris, as they are all the family they have left. Kit remains Virginia's friend and companion until Virginia dies at the age of 101.
Release
The Only One Left was published on June 20, 2023.
Reception
Reviewers noted the strong influences of the Lizzie Borden incident, Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca, and Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher".
Early reviews were generally positive. Becky Meloan in The Washington Post called it "hair-raising" and "edge-of-your-seat entertainment", while Publishers Weekly approved of its "jaw-dropping twists" and called it a "superior nail-biter". Book critic Felecia Wellington Radel, writing in USA Today, felt the characters and Hope's End itself were some of the best parts of the book, and called the book a "thrilling page-turner".
Other reviews were less supportive. Danielle Trussoni in The New York Times called the novel "a dizzying Gothic whodunit" and a "propulsive mystery". She wrote that the book had "Sager’s signature breakneck pace" but also pointed to plot twists that "stretch believability".
References
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