‘The Only Survivors’ by Megan Miranda

Published by Quercus,
11 April 2023.
ISBN: 978-1-52943-187-2 (HB)

Building and maintaining tension is an essential part of the craft of the crime writer, and in The Only Survivors Megan Miranda has produced an object lesson in that skill. It begins at a pretty high pitch, and not only stays there but climbs higher, until the reader is left wondering who will snap first. Creating atmosphere is another useful accomplishment, and there’s plenty of that here as well: a slightly spooky house in which the characters gather; the kind of destructive storm which has become all too common; a small mystery around every corner.

Seven twenty-somethings are the only survivors of the title: the ones who got out alive after a school field trip which culminated in a horrendous road accident. At first there were nine, but people deal with disaster in different ways; two of the original group failed to deal with it at all and took their own lives. The remaining seven made a pact to meet up every year – a kind of support group, but also a way of keeping tabs on each other.   

The story charts their ten-year anniversary get-together, narrated mainly by Cassidy, who always felt insignificant and invisible before the crash, and is keen to put it all behind her and dispense with the annual meetings. Occasionally it slips into flashback, charting how that fateful night was for each of the other six. It becomes plain that when they escaped from the aftermath of the crash, they weren’t entirely honest about what they’d left behind – and that someone else knows what really happened.  

Ten years on, the seven survivors all have responsible, adult lives and careers – a hedge fund manager, an events co-ordinator, a lawyer, a therapist, an athletics coach among others. Each is distinct: self-important Oliver, fitness freak Hollis, laid-back Josh, deliberately calm Grace; but there’s a strong sense throughout the novel that none of them has never fully grown up. Everyone seems slightly suspicious of other members of the group, and the reader is left not knowing who, if anyone, to trust. And of course, it all winds up to a chilling climax when all the mysteries are solved, secrets are spilled and the truth comes out – though not quite as you might expect.

Megan Miranda knows how to build a page-turner, with characters you don’t necessarily like, but who make you want to know what they did and how they’re going to deal with it. And she knows how to plant clues so that you hardly know they’re there until they really matter. Read The Only Survivors; you’ll see what I mean.
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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

Megan Miranda was a scientist and high school teacher before writing Fracture, which came out of her fascination with scientific mysteries—especially those associated with the brain. Megan has a BS in biology from MIT and spent her post-college years either rocking a lab coat or reading books. She grew up in New Jersey. She lives near Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband and children. She also writes young adult fiction and young adult fantasy.

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives in Oxfordshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.