Riley Sager Books in Order

Riley Sager is the pen name that dragged the slasher-movie thriller back onto bestseller lists: Final Girls (2017) - three last girls standing, one still living the sequel - won the ITW Award for Best Hardcover and became the template for eight more standalones, one per summer, each a high-concept premise with a switchback in the last act. Behind the name is Todd Ritter, a New Jersey newsman whose real-name debut went nowhere until the pseudonym and a Stephen King blurb changed everything. Every book stands alone - there are no sequels - so the order question is really a which-one-first question, and the answer depends on your flavor of locked room. This page runs all nine with the premise hook of each (2017–present).

Where to start

Final Girls (2017), the debut and the only one with an award - and the book that teaches you how a Sager ending works, which makes every later twist land harder. Camp-story readers may prefer Survive the Night (2021) as a gateway; it is the shortest and the most purely propulsive.

Does the reading order matter?

Any order works - nine standalones, zero crossovers. The flavor map: campus-gothic (The Last Time I Lied, 2018), the Jules-Verne apartment thriller (Lock Every Door, 2019), the true-crime haunted house (Home Before Dark, 2020), the 1990s road-movie slasher (Survive the Night, 2021), the Rear Window on a lake (The House Across the Lake, 2022), the Lizzie-Borden retelling (The Only One Left, 2023), the summer-camp cold case (Middle of the Night, 2024) and the European scavenger-hunt manhunt (With a Vengeance, 2025). Publication order is the default for completists; premise-picking is the honest recommendation.

Which one is the best?

Final Girls (2017), the award-winning blueprint; Home Before Dark (2020), the fan-picked peak - the house-with-a-story premise welded to a genuine gut-punch; Lock Every Door (2019) for the creepiest single building.

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: Ruth Ware books in order, Freida McFadden books in order, Lisa Jewell books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.