The person01–03
01·Who they are
Who is Jake Riordan?
Jake Riordan occupies one of the most carefully constructed positions in One of Us Is Lying: the seemingly safe, visible boyfriend who is, in fact, the novel's hidden architect of violence. A popular athlete at Bayview High, Jake projects the image McManus wants the reader to trust—steady, conventionally handsome, the kind of boyfriend who picks you up and sits beside you at every police interview. His social capital is real; he belongs to the inner circle that controls Bayview's reputation economy, and he knows how to use it. Yet every marker of his apparent stability—his protectiveness, his attention to detail about Addy's friendships, his calm during the investigation—is gradually reread by the novel as a symptom of coercive control rather than affection. Jake appears most like an innocent bystander precisely because he engineered the crime with enough layers between himself and the act to seem invisible.
02·Arc & motivation
What is Jake Riordan's arc and motivation?
Jake's arc runs almost entirely beneath the surface of the novel's first two-thirds. While the Bayview Four dominate the narrative spotlight as suspects, Jake moves through those chapters as supporting cast—attending vigils, comforting Addy, performing grief. His motivation is both petty and lethal: he was conducting an affair, Simon Kelleher discovered it and held it over him, and rather than face social and personal humiliation, Jake chose elimination. Crucially, he had already colluded with Simon on the gossip app that targeted the four detainees, meaning the murder was not impulsive but the logical endpoint of pre-existing manipulation. His arc peaks when he shifts from passive control to active physical danger—cornering Addy as she pieces together the truth—and collapses entirely into exposure and arrest at the novel's climax.
03·Key moments
What are Jake Riordan's key moments?
The detention setup is Jake's most consequential act: by engineering the circumstances that put Simon in a room with the Bayview Four and ensuring the EpiPens were tampered with, he converts a logistical conspiracy into murder. The reader revisits this sequence retrospectively once his role is confirmed, which makes the novel's early chapters feel retroactively sinister.
Jake's management of Addy's social world accumulates as a slow pattern of key moments rather than a single scene. His deliberate distancing of Addy from Janae Norman—dismissing Janae, discouraging the friendship—reads at first as mild jealousy but is revealed as calculated isolation designed to keep Addy pliable and friendless enough to need only him.
The violent confrontation near the novel's climax, when Jake physically threatens Addy after she gets too close to the truth, marks the moment his coercive control escalates into undeniable danger. It is the scene that ends his ability to hide and completes Addy's transformation, as she survives it on her own terms and sets the stage for her cooperation with investigators.
The cast04–05
04·Relationships
What are Jake Riordan's most important relationships?
Jake and Addy are the novel's central cautionary portrait of intimate partner control. Jake did not choose Addy randomly; her social dependency and eagerness to please made her an ideal subject for his management. He monitors her movements, curates her friendships, and uses the investigation to position himself as her only safe harbor—making the investigation itself an instrument of control. Addy's growing closeness with Bronwyn, Nate, and Cooper threatens Jake not because of jealousy but because solidarity provides her with a mirror to see her relationship clearly.
Jake and Simon illustrate a partnership of mutual exploitation that turned fatal. Simon provided the gossip infrastructure; Jake supplied a target list and presumably influence. When their interests diverged—when Simon became a threat rather than an asset—Jake demonstrated that he viewed every relationship, including this one, as purely transactional.
Jake and Janae do not share significant page time, but Jake's efforts to erase her from Addy's life reflect his strategic intelligence. He rightly identified Janae's loyalty as the relationship most likely to loosen his grip.
05·Connected characters
How is Jake Riordan connected to the other characters?
Study06–07
06·Questions
Questions readers ask about Jake Riordan
Is Jake Riordan the killer in One of Us Is Lying?
Yes, Jake Riordan is the novel's hidden mastermind who engineered Simon Kelleher's murder. He tampered with the EpiPens and deliberately staged the detention scenario to put Simon in a room with the Bayview Four, creating both the opportunity and a ready-made pool of suspects. The murder was not impulsive; it was the calculated endpoint of a pre-existing conspiracy between him and Simon.
Why did Jake Riordan want Simon Kelleher dead?
Jake killed Simon to prevent him from exposing Jake's infidelity with Addy. The two had previously colluded on Simon's gossip app, but when their interests diverged and Simon became a threat rather than an asset, Jake chose elimination over humiliation. McManus frames the murder as the logical extension of Jake's broader pattern of removing anything that threatened his control.
How does Jake Riordan control Addy Prentiss throughout the novel?
Jake controls Addy through calculated isolation and emotional manipulation. He monitors her movements, discourages her friendship with Janae Norman, and uses the murder investigation itself to position himself as her only safe harbor. He chose Addy precisely because her social dependency made her easy to manage, and he treats her growing solidarity with the other four suspects as a direct threat to his grip on her.
What is Jake Riordan's relationship with Janae Norman?
Jake has almost no direct relationship with Janae, but he deliberately drives a wedge between her and Addy. He rightly identifies Janae's loyalty as the bond most capable of loosening his control over Addy, so he dismisses and discourages the friendship. What reads initially as mild jealousy is later revealed as a strategic act of isolation.
How does Jake Riordan get caught?
Jake is exposed and arrested after he physically threatens Addy in a violent confrontation when she gets too close to the truth. This confrontation ends his ability to hide and prompts Addy's cooperation with investigators, including Officer Nadia Santiago, whose work had already been closing in on him. His arrest at the novel's climax follows directly from this moment.
Does Jake Riordan have any famous or notable quotes in the novel?
No verbatim quotes attributed to Jake Riordan have been recorded in the novel's study materials. His menace is conveyed less through memorable lines and more through McManus's structural technique — his words are consistently framed as reassuring and ordinary right up until his true role is revealed, which is itself part of the novel's critique of how coercive control disguises itself as normalcy.
How does Jake Riordan's relationship with Addy connect to Simon's murder?
The two are expressions of the same controlling logic. Jake colluded with Simon to spread gossip and then murdered him when Simon threatened exposure — both acts were about eliminating threats to his power. His manipulation of Addy runs in parallel: he isolates, monitors, and ultimately endangers her for the same reason he killed Simon. McManus presents coercive control and murder as structurally identical impulses in Jake's character.
What does Jake Riordan represent thematically in One of Us Is Lying?
Jake represents toxic masculinity and coercive control hiding behind conventional social status. McManus uses his athletic popularity and role as a "protective" boyfriend to critique how communities misread dominance as care. His arc also serves as a dark foil to the genuine solidarity the Bayview Four develop — where their bonds are mutual and liberating, Jake's every relationship is transactional and ultimately destructive.
07·Essay angles
Use this in your essay
Tool · Essay angles
Toxic masculinity as social performance
Coercive control as a structural parallel to murder
The unreliable surface
Addy's liberation as the novel's real resolution
Simon and Jake as a mirror pair