Megan Miranda’s always a safe pair of hands for a solid psychological thriller. There’s usually an atmospheric setting and that’s the case here with The Only Survivors. The story follows a group who went to the same high school, who in their senior year were on a school trip that went horribly wrong. Of the original nine survivors, seven are left, meeting up once a year for a week to check in with each other, to make sure they’re all OK.
It’s now ten years since the accident that saw two vans of kids drive off a twisty bit of road into a river. Twelve people lost their lives, but no one really knows what happened. Amaya’s lawyer parents stepped in; their firm produced an acceptable story and that was that, no blame, no repercussions. Just a tidy payout to the survivors, a memorial library in honour of those who died.
As the anniversary looms, with their usual week away at The Shallows, a rambling beach house on a sandy peninsula, Cassidy has almost decided to stay home. She has a new relationship, which unlike those before, might be going somewhere, and she has been trying to distance herself from the group, changing her contact details. However an email telling her that one of the survivors has taken his life gets through. Ian was always fragile, and Ian was the one Cassidy was closest to. Driven by guilt for not being there for him, Cassidy changes her mind and packs her bag.
The story follows Cassidy’s growing unease at The Shallows, a feeling that someone is watching them. Woven into this are switches back in time to the hours following the crash. It soon appears that those who made it out aren’t just suffering from survivor guilt but have other reasons for remorse. There’s finger pointing and blame hovering just under the surface of their interactions, particularly now there’s the threat of a new inquiry.
As an older reader, you can’t help but imagine how your eighteen-year-old self would cope in a life and death situation like this accident. It’s easy at first to forgive – they’re so young and did well to get out alive. Ten years on they’ve made good lives for themselves career-wise but have they really moved on? Secrets emerge in the snippets from the accident that have you guessing – secrets involving arguments and a knife – nicely upping the tension.
As the man called 911, he counted them in the beam of the headlights. “Seven, eight, nine kids – “
“We have to go back,” Clara sobbed. “There are – ” But Joshua pulled her tighter, so tight, her cries were muffled into his shoulder.
“Shh,” Josh said, close to her ear.
They’d all heard the violence of the river. The crash of the water flooding through the gorge, close at their heels. They knew there was no surviving it.
Amaya saw it all, a montage: the people they had left behind – injured, huddled along the base of the cliffs. The haunting look in their eyes. It was too late for them, she knew. She’d known it from the start.
In the present day, as another weather emergency threatens, it’s hard for Cassidy to know who to trust, especially when Amaya makes an early departure. Megan Miranda does a nice job of working the psychology of the different characters, the way they bicker and lurk alone in their rooms, or clump together at the local bar for hours in apparent solidarity. Everyone seems to have secrets.
Tension builds nicely, helped by the atmosphere of the house, with its unlatched doors that blow open in the wind, the creaky floorboards and ramshackle balconies, as the story works to a surprising and shocking conclusion. But the most shocking thing of all is that you can just imagine how this could actually happen. The Only Survivors is a terrific page-turner, and a four-star read from me.
Judith McKinnon 