Riley Sager is the pen name of Todd Ritter, an American author who formerly worked as a journalist and editor. Ritter published three novels known as the Kat Campbell Series under his given name between 2010 and 2013 and one novel under the pen name Alan Finn in 2014. In 2017, Ritter published Final Girls, his first novel under the name Riley Sager, which has since become associated with page-turning psychological thrillers. The Last Time I Lied is Ritter’s second novel as Sager, and he has continued to write many New York Times Best Sellers, including Home Before Dark (2020) and The House Across the Lake (2022).

Sager is known for fast-paced mysteries with multiple twists and turns. His protagonists are always female, and many have compared his work to psychological thrillers “rooted in the inner worlds of women,” like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins (Gamerman, Ellen. “These Male Authors Don’t Mind if You Think They’re Women.” The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2017). Sager’s first novels didn’t include an author photo or gender-specific information in his biography. While the author’s true identity was never kept a secret, some critics have suggested that Sager writes under a gender-neutral

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