Margins
The One I Left Behind book cover
The One I Left Behind
2013
First Published
3.78
Average Rating
440
Number of Pages

Bestselling author Jennifer McMahon is back with a gut-wrenching mystery about an architect whose troubled mother has been found 25 years after being kidnapped-by a killer who is still on the loose. The summer of 1985 changed Reggie's life. Thirteen, awkward, and without a father, she finds herself mixed up with her school's outcasts-Charlie, the local detective's son, and Tara, a goth kid who has a mental hold over Reggie and harbors a dark secret. That same summer a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women. He leaves their severed hands on the police department steps and, five days later, displays their bodies around town. Just when Reggie needs her mother Vera-an ex-model with many "boyfriends" and a thirst for gin-the most, Vera's hand is found on the steps. But after five days, there's no body and Neptune disappears. Now a successful architect who left her hometown behind after that horrific summer, Reggie doesn't trust anyone and lives with few attachments. But when she gets a call from a homeless shelter saying that her mother has been found alive, Reggie must confront the ghosts of her past and find Neptune before he kills again. With her signature style, Jennifer McMahon portrays the dark side of adolescent friendship and introduces characters who haunt the imagination, along with a disturbing web of secrets, betrayals, and murder.

Avg Rating
3.78
Number of Ratings
16,834
5 STARS
22%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Jennifer McMahon
Jennifer McMahon
Author · 16 books
I'm the author of nine suspense novels, including Promise Not to Telll, The Winter People, and my newest, The Drowning Kind. I live in central Vermont with my partner and daughter, in an old Victorian that some neighbors call The Addams Family house.
548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2026 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved