Love old houses and wild twists? You must know this author!
The bestselling thriller novelist Riley Sager on faded glamour, murder houses, and how inspiration can strike at any moment.
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I’m convinced the bestselling thriller writer Riley Sager quietly dedicates his novels to us old house lovers. Sure, he might be famous for crafting layered and unpredictable twists, but I’m telling you: Just pick up one of his books—I’m partial to The Only One Left, where an heiress-turned-murderer (or is she!?) is confined to a decaying Gilded Age mansion, or his most recent novel, With A Vengeance, set on a luxurious vintage sleeper train while a homicidal maniac runs about—and you’ll see what I mean.
Very much the target audience for these books (the only thing I love more than a gripping thriller is one set somewhere I’d, uh, kill to explore) I was curious to know more. I sat down with Sager to discuss what inspires the intriguing homes featured in his popular books… and what secrets he can spill about the novels that lie ahead.
“I’ve always been obsessed with fancy old houses, especially if they have a bit of creepy, faded glamour to them. A pristine rose might be beautiful, but isn’t the wilting flower more interesting?” Sager told me from his home office in Princeton, New Jersey.
Sager developed a love of old houses as a response to growing up in a relatively unassuming home in central Pennsylvania. “One of my friends lived in a beautiful old house, and I just loved going there! I thought how lucky he was to live in such a cool home.”
Fast forward a few decades, and Sager channels that interest whenever inspiration strikes for the next novel. “I don’t know that much about architecture and design, but I throw myself into research.”
In the case of The Only One Left, my favorite of the bunch, where protagonist Kit McDeere becomes a caregiver to Lenora Hope—sole survivor (and possible perpetrator) of a family massacre—at the decaying Hope’s End mansion, that meant starting with a single phrase: Lizzie Borden’s nurse.
“I was watching a documentary about Lizzie Borden, and started to think about who took care of Lizzie when she got older—what was her story?” Sager explained. “I started with an image of a young woman in an old timey nurse’s uniform, standing in a crooked hallway. I loved the idea of a mansion tilting on a cliff, in danger of crumbling into the sea at any moment,” Sager explained. “I began to research Gilded Age mansions knowing Hope’s End needed to a gothic and imposing answer to the famous Borden house, which is colonial.”
Sager layered this vision with the iconic Manderley from Rebecca to form the general concept of Lenora’s lair, but everything clicked the moment he learned about Blairsden Mansion in New Jersey.
“It’s rumored to be a murder house! Allegedly, Blairsden was a former orphanage where the nuns went insane and started murdering people. None of that is true! But I saw a picture and immediately thought ‘there it is—that’s Hope’s End.’”
Sager is a bit of a magpie for inspiration, and often draws from environments he’s personally experienced. During the deep pandemic, Sager found himself in Vermont when he and his husband rented a lake house. “The very first night, we arrived, and I poured myself a bourbon. I walked out on the back porch overlooking the water, sat there, and watched the lights on the other side of the lake. In that moment, I just knew: This was going to be a book.” The House Across the Lake was released a little over a year and a half later.
The Hawthorne Institute in Middle of the Night was very loosely inspired by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, not too far from his own home “There’s so much that’s not known about what Oppenheimer and Einstein were doing there, and the grounds are eerily quiet.” Then there’s Lock Every Door, which takes place within the walls of the storied and fictionalized prewar Bartholomew apartment house, known for its illustrious residents, luxurious sprawling layouts, and unsettling architectural style. Three guesses on that one!
“How could you not be obsessed with The Dakota? The architecture is so out of place on Central Park West! It crafts that perfect, slightly creepy atmosphere. I never want a setting to be outright scary, but it needs to be feel not entirely safe.”
He carries that through in latest book With a Vengeance, which takes place on what was once the most luxurious train in America. Sager said that this book is the first book he’s written where he determined the plot after deciding where to place it. “I specifically set it in 1954 because of the movie White Christmas, where they take a train from Florida to Vermont. The train is entirely sold out, yet you never see another person on the journey. What’s that about? It had to become a book!”
He researched the California Zephyr, famous trains of the 1940s and 1950s, and the current, hyper luxurious incarnation of the Venice Simpleton Orient Express, which still runs today. “I couldn’t set it in a modern Amtrak train… that would be a little sad,” Sager said, laughing. Establishing the story in the 1950s also gave him a chance to lean into his love of faded glamour, since by the ‘50s, train ridership was declining, and even though this train is supposed to impress with its luxurious appointments, it’s very much becoming that wilted rose that Sager finds so intriguing.
“A note my editor gave me after I turned in the first draft was that she wanted the train to feel haunted—maybe not literally, but I took that note and I ran with it!” What he created was what he describes as a reverse Murder on the Orient Express, with one person seeking revenge on everyone aboard.
When asked about where he hopes to set future novels, he said that he’d love to explore a beautiful old hotel like the Chateau Marmont and Hotel du Cap Eden Roc. While his next book, due in 2026, is all settled, he teased that the 2027 thriller might just be set at a manor house. Perfect timing, really, since when we were talking, Sager was preparing to visit London for the first time to see Wimbledon “I can’t wait to just walk around and look at the old architecture—it will be stunning.” A future novel to take us across the pond with one of the best thriller writers working today? One can hope!
Adding to my reading list - thank-you!
I had no idea Riley Sager was an old house lover but after reading this…it makes so much sense! Excited to read his next book!