I absolutely loved the premise of this book (and the cover is super cool). In my opinion, it was just a bit slow. I like fast paced thrillers and this one definitely didn't catch my attention. Overall I did enjoy the book, but wasn't my favorite.

6:40 to Montreal by Eva Jurczyck

Eva Jurczyck's "6:40 to Montreal" starts with an irresistible premise: a snowbound train, a locked-room mystery, and a protagonist who's a writer struggling with her second book. Following Agatha St. John on what should have been a peaceful writing retreat from Toronto to Montreal, the story takes a dark turn when a blizzard strands the passengers and a body is discovered.
The author's attention to detail shines through Agatha's observant narration, and the atmospheric tension is masterfully crafted. The prose is engaging, with moments of sharp wit that lighten the mounting suspense. However, while the setup promises a classic Christie-style mystery, the story loses momentum after the first death. The timeline jumps between past and present add intrigue but occasionally scatter the narrative focus.
Despite not quite reaching its full potential, the book offers enough suspense and intrigue to keep pages turning. Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers who appreciate unreliable narrators and atmospheric storytelling, though readers seeking a tightly plotted traditional mystery might find themselves wanting more.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars
ARC provided by NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for review.

Although I absolutely loved the premise of this book and the gorgeous cover, 6:40 to Montreal just wasn’t for me. I wanted to love this book but, unfortunately, I found it slow and predictable, which is why I gave it 2.5 stars.

Plot:

Agatha, an author with writer's block, is gifted a train ride to Montreal and back by her husband, Teddy. Since the trains are known for their bad wifi and limited reception, Teddy hopes this trip will help Agatha focus on writing her new book. Agatha is grateful for the trip, but not for the reasons you may expect. However, things quickly go awry when the train gets stuck in a snowstorm, and a passenger silently passes away in their seat.

Things I liked:

My favourite thing about this book is that it takes place in Canada along a very popular train route. I don’t often find books set in Canada, let alone in an area I’m familiar with. This was a unique and fun reading experience that I won’t soon forget.

Additionally, the prose in this book was quite good. The opening chapters of the novel were mysterious and intriguing, making me excited for what was to come.

Things I disliked:

As mentioned above, I found this story to be slow and predictable. I am an avid mystery reader and often predict major plot twists. However, I usually still enjoy the books because the twists are exciting. Unfortunately, this was not the case for 6:40 to Montreal. Every time the story began to pick up, the MC would go off on a tangent in her head or have a flashback that didn’t add much to the story. A large portion of the story was dedicated to a plot point that, while stressful, had nothing to do with the mystery at hand. The plot twist happens right at the end of the novel and is followed by a very brief explanation. I think that the story the MC was writing would have been more interesting than this book itself.

Additionally, I was expecting something different from this book, given its description. The description talks about Agatha and the others on the train having to survive an unseen enemy, which led me to believe there would be more than one suspicious death and multiple suspects. While the characters do point fingers at one another, no one has any motives. Without the possibility of sudden death, I didn’t find this book suspenseful at all. Having these assumptions may have impacted how much I enjoyed the story, so if you read it knowing it won’t be anything like a whodunit, you will probably enjoy it more than I did!

These last few points are based on things I don’t particularly like in novels, but I know others don’t mind. I just wanted to share in case there are other people who feel similarly to me. To begin with, the MC is an author who is struggling to write her second book. As a writer, it is hard for me to read books like this because it brings me back to reality and makes me anxious about my own work. Additionally, I found the book to be a bit vulgar at times for seemingly no reason. It didn’t bother me that much until the very end of the book; the final sentences of the novel left a bad taste in my mouth.

Final thoughts:

While I didn’t like this book, I know many others will. There was nothing wrong with the way it was written, it just wasn’t for me. If you are interested in the premise of the novel, definitely give it a chance.

This book is very well written, but I almost didn’t finish it. I’m glad I did only because I found the main character does go through something of a personal growth “arc”. I found her very unsympathetic, crude and self-pitying, but no more so than any other character, except maybe the poor diabetic kid or the two-dimensional husband. Some of the characters are well developed, but too much of their dialogue has no real logic behind it and seemed written only to add some kind of “thrill” or add disconnected complications to the story. None of the killings had a believable motive that I could see except that the main character was absurdly paranoid and made everyone else in the train car paranoid too. I’m not sure (or maybe I just can’t believe) who did the initial murder or why, though I reread the ending several times. Do I care? No. The idea that she wouldn’t have recognized the one very important person on the train strikes me as ludicrous. Finally she understands the true meaning of her life. I wish I could.

This is a complex book. A group of people are stranded in a train car during a snowstorm. Murder happens and plot twists follow to who done it. I must say characters do not invoke sympathy

Agatha should be writing.

Her husband gifted her this one-day, first-class train journey from Toronto to Montreal—six uninterrupted hours, no Wi-Fi, no distractions—just her and the blank computer page. A golden opportunity to finish her second novel, the follow-up to her wildly successful debut, a thriller about a yoga instructor whose secrets unravel in deadly fashion.

But writer’s block isn’t her only problem.

Among the passengers is a woman Agatha knows all too well—one who claims that Agatha's novel is her story, stolen and twisted into fiction. She’s angry. She’s bitter. And she wants Agatha to pay.

Before Agatha can process the confrontation, disaster strikes. The train derails in the middle of nowhere, leaving the passengers stranded in the wreckage. Then, in true Christie fashion, the bodies start piling up. One by one, the passengers are dying.

Trapped with a vengeful woman, a train car full of strangers, and the creeping fear that someone wants her dead, Agatha must unravel the truth before she becomes the next victim.

A locked-room mystery set at high speed, 6:40 to Montreal is a masterclass in suspense—atmospheric, clever, and utterly unputdownable.

#640toMontreal #AgathaChristieInspired #PoisonedPenPress #EvaJurczyk #WritersBlockCanKill

Thank you Poisoned Pen Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

6:40 to Montreal is about an author struggling with writer’s block. Her husband buys her a first class train ticket from Toronto to Montreal as a sort of writer’s retreat. While on the train she realizes a former friend and now internet stalker is also somehow on the same train. When the train gets stuck during a snowstorm things escalate as one passenger dies and another falls ill.

This was a great mystery with an ending I didn’t see coming. I love the idea of a writing retreat on a train or maybe just a long comfy train ride to get some reading done. Minus the snowstorms and mayhem of course! It’s also an interesting perspective on what would you do for love.

Filled with twists and turns as you try to piece together what is really going on. I thought this was pretty fast paced. I enjoyed the parts of Agatha trying to flesh out her next book and thought that was an interesting story.

Check this out if you like a good locked room mystery.

6:40 to Montreal is my first book form this author and it was pretty good. I love locked room mystery or mysteries where there’s no way to contact outside world. This falls in that very well. Our main character is Agatha and her husband gifts her this first class ticket on this train.l for a retreat where she can finish writing her next book. While traveling On this very train there’s someone that is found dead in their seat and that’s when the mystery begins.

I love Agatha Christie’s Murder on the orient express so I was very excited about this book.

This book was fast-paced and filled with twists, I quite liked it and it was a good time reading this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing this eARC, these are my honest opinions.

6:40 to Montreal is a train ride that Agatha takes to get some writing done. Then the train breaks down and a passenger dies. I loved the atmosphere of the book, stuck train, locked room, snow storm. I enjoyed the main character and the twists. This was a fast read. A 3.5.

I received an ARC of this book in return for an honest review.

I'm afraid this was a DNF for me. I only managed about a third of the book as I found the style of the writing not to my taste at all. The characters seemed shallow and contrived and I struggled to stay interested in the story.

Our protagonist is Agatha, a writer trying to get some work done on her new book on a train from Toronto to Montreal.
The train gets stuck in a snowstorm and things unravel from there.
The whole story takes place in the first class cabin of the train so there are only a few characters. I wish some of them were more fleshed out, but we only get more depth on Agatha who really is hard to root for. She is so incredibly smug. The pacing in the first half of the book is quite good, but after the second half, Agatha’s memories and thoughts keep pulling you out of the flow of the story. I finished this book but I maybe should have DNFed it, didn’t feel worthwhile to read to the end.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this advance readers copy in exchange for my honest feedback!!! Thriller located in Canada. Yes please. We need more of these!!!!

This book had me hooked from page one. I loved the setup and the atmosphere, and I’m a big fan of an unreliable narrator. It kept me guessing and changing my mind about who I thought the culprit was throughout, and I did not see the twist at the end coming. There were a few points where I had a hard time picturing the inside of the train car and where everyone was supposed to be, and how they could fit into the aisle or into a specific row, but that could just be my own very limited experience on trains. Overall this was such a fun read!

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A train trip turns deadly, and there are suspects galore.

I truly believe there is no better setting for a murder mystery than a train stuck in the snow. 6:40 did not disappoint. The atmosphere was incredible. I absolutely loved our main character. She was so witty and real and honestly didn’t care what anyone thought of her. The middle of the book was a bit slow but the last 20% made up for it. I also really liked the ending. It felt so fitting for our main characters personality and story line.
3.5/4 Stars

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for sending me an arc copy in exchange for my honest review.

The first part of the book was intriguing--the reader is left wondering, what is the source of the narrator's anxiety? Does she have something planned for the train ride? Why did Teddy shave his face? The book then slows down. The mystery weaves in and out, and there are multiple extra characters that don't really matter. As for the ending, I suppose that's a form of love to be willing to do whatever it takes to make your partner feel more alive?

This one had me wondering where exactly was I going, reading this one! Murder on a train, train stuck in a terrible snowstorm in Canada, no help anywhere for many miles and many hours. But our protagonist treats us to a ride that you will enjoy. Not too serious but fun nonetheless.

640 To Montreal is a wild ride! I went into this book blind and its many twists and turns kept me guessing throughout. Eva Jurczyk blends elements of a locked room mystery with an unreliable narrator to craft an engaging thriller. Agatha sets off on a winter train trip from Toronto to Montreal and it’s clear she has secrets. At the same time her secrets are revealed, a wild scene unfolds on the train. I really enjoyed this page turner and recommend it to anyone looking for an entertaining read.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press for the advanced review copy.

Gorgeous cover and a fun premise, but this felt interminably long, and the wackadoo ending didn’t feel worth the time it took me to slog through this thing. I wish I’d followed my instincts and DNFd because this didn’t work for me AT ALL. I seem to be an outlier on this one, and I think readers who enjoy a slower burn than me will likely enjoy this much more than I did!

There were some funny snarky bits, but overall too much repetition and too many things that didn’t make sense (which - to be fair - could 100% be my fault bc there was definitely some skimming happening by the last 25%).

With all the hype I’ve seen about this book, I was cautiously optimistic. It was good! The pacing was good and it kept me entertained the entire time.