Riley Sager

Riley Sager — the pen name of American thriller writer Todd Ritter — specializes in Gothic-tinged thrillers where a woman returns to or enters an ominous house and confronts an old crime, as in The Only One Left, which sends caregiver Kit into a Maine mansion to tend a woman long accused of a Lizzie Borden-style family massacre. We've reviewed 2 of their books, both New York Times bestsellers built on twist-heavy structures; The Only One Left holds a 4.4/5 reader rating from over 63,000 Amazon ratings, while Home Before Dark pairs a skeptical daughter with the haunted history of a Victorian estate through a dual-narrative structure critics praised.