The Last One Left
1967 novel by John D. MacDonald
The Last One Left (1967) is a mystery novel by John D. MacDonald. The plot is similar to the notorious real-life events on the sailing ship Bluebelle when, in 1961, the captain killed his wife and four passengers and set a surviving child adrift to die, all in an unsuccessful attempt to cash in his wife's life insurance policy.
The book's subtitle is A story about money and dying, and it is written on several different levels. Throughout the plot are subtle discourses on what it means to have a "good" life, how people deal with stress and uncertainty, and at what point will someone reach out for healthy human contact, or else take self-interest as their highest goal. The Last One Left has been described as one of MacDonald's longest and most complex works.
The story largely takes place in southern Florida and the Bahamas, and is similar to many of the author's better-known stories starring adventurer Travis McGee. The book is in fact dedicated to McGee "who lent invaluable support and encouragement," and a named runabout motorboat later appears in the McGee novel Pale Gray for Guilt.
It was originally published in 1967, appearing in paperback by Fawcett (reprinted 1981) and in hardcover by Doubleday.
Plot summary
A yacht explodes in the Bahamas, apparently killing six people and leaving its burned captain temporarily marooned on a small island. Sam Boylston, an attorney from Texas and the brother of one of the victims, investigates the circumstances, as does Raoul Kelly, a newspaper reporter.
The public source identifies “The Last One Left” as 1967 novel by John D. MacDonald. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Last, Left and novel.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7745913. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1961 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Last One Left” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.