Years before, a group of people made decisions, or were manipulated into making decisions, that led to the death of nearly 40 people. For the protagonist, this was personal--her own brother died, and it started a domino effect that led to her mother and father dying. Now, she's getting vengeance. Anna likes to call it justice, but there are other characters featured who want revenge, and so, people start to die in what is supposed to be a chill train ride from Philadelphia to Chicago. I enjoyed the setting and closed door mystery element, and there were many suspects to delve through. This is one of Sager's more fast-paced novels, and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to suspense readers.

A very different kind of story by Riley Sager. It almost has an Agatha Christie vibe; easy to read and quite enjoyable. Lots of suspects, even more twists and "I didn't see it coming" moments. Thanks to @duttonbooks and @netgalley for this great ARC in exchange for my honest review.

loving this riley sager redemption arc for me

very happy i got around to reading this. it was so twisty and so thrilling to read. some plot holes were predictable but i loved reading about people who are so contorted by their grief that they'll go to whatever means necessary to soothe themselves. also really enjoyed this being set in the 50s with a bunch of Nazi sympathizers. feels fitting for 2025 to say the least.

only cons are that it does read a little too much like a carbon copy of Clue or Murder On The Orient Express and that the twists were a bit much after a while (a common riley sager flaw, old habits die hard). just give me one solid knock out and give it a rest, riley....I'M BEGGING YOU!

still, anything is better than House Across The Lake / Only One Left. major props for improving little buddy.

1.75 from me.

Riley, Riley, Riley - different can be good. You’ve dabbled yearly in new twists, new sub genres, realistic, supernatural, etc - I’ve read them all. In fact, I jokingly hate read you. I drop everything to read your latest, hoping it will be better than the last.

It sounds like I should love your work, but I just can’t figure you out. And this one is no different. Historical thriller - very much Murder on the Orient Express meets And Then There Were None (clearly in your Agatha Christie era) - but toss in possible Nazi sympathizers and a woman hellbent on revenge and we’ve got our book.

I didn’t hate it. I didn’t like it tho. It was boring at best. Super unrealistic at times (but when aren’t you?) but the plot moved predictably forward with almost everyone having their soliloquy moment where they admitted their heinous crimes and their justifications. And one by one they get picked off by an unknown killer. Yawn.

I read it over a couple of days, it feels bland in comparison to a lot of your other books really lacking the punch I’ve come to expect from you. It honestly could have been 100 pages shorter and saved us the time reading about these boring and underdeveloped characters whose names are burned into memory simply because you used their FULL NAME EVERY DAMN TIME.

And the ending? Magic conductor man is actually the most evil villain around and is just spilling all the details about why he did it like some scooby doo baddie? Christ on a cracker man - you had the FBI try to offer her a job at the end because your criminal agent with a connection to the case told you she was a “real whiz and could defend herself?” Did you even use the Google to figure out when women could enter the FBI? It certainly wasn’t 1954…not until J. Edgar Hoover was 6ft under 🕵️‍♀️🙄

But hey - at least it wasn’t some stupid House Across the Lake bullshit this time, although it got a higher rating from me than this made for tv knock off.

New Riley Sager alert!

As the title implies, our MC, Anna, is seeking vengeance on the six individuals she has pinpointed in playing a role in a plot to take down her family. Set in the mid 1950s, we end up with a locked room style whodunnit that takes place over the course of an overnight train ride from Philadelphia to Chicago.

To kick things off, I did think that the premise was quite interesting as the story itself did feel a bit different than some of Sager’s past work. I do also enjoy a good locked room mystery and ones where the entire book takes place in the matter of just a few hours which is what this book did. Because of that, I loved how it was broken up into the different hours so it came off like a countdown to the end. Mixed with the various POVs, it made for a quick read that was easy to fly through.

As for the thriller/ mystery side of things, I was invested early on in wanting to know and understand why Anna had gathered the six individuals and what they were complicit in. However, I do feel like a lot of the good stuff ended up being revealed earlier on in the story and train ride, so the story did lose a little steam for me in the middle.

There was also the matter of people being picked off on the train one by one and trying to figure out who the murderer was. Though there were some surprises mixed in, I don’t think the ultimate reveal was that shocking and at the end I did feel a little underwhelmed with how it all played out.

I also didn’t find any of the characters to be very likable and I had a hard time really empathizing with the MC, Anna, even though I feel like I was supposed to? And I feel like to the lack of connection I had with the characters made me enjoy this a tad less than I would have liked.

Overall, this may not have been my favorite Riley Sager book or thriller, but there wasn’t anything bad about it, but it also didn’t feel super memorable either. But, I am positive fans will still devour this up and like it, so if this sounds like it may be for you, check it out when it releases this summer!aNew Riley Sager alert!

As the title implies, our MC, Anna, is seeking vengeance on the six individuals she has pinpointed in playing a role in a plot to take down her family. Set in the mid 1950s, we end up with a locked room style whodunnit that takes place over the course of an overnight train ride from Philadelphia to Chicago.

To kick things off, I did think that the premise was quite interesting as the story itself did feel a bit different than some of Sager’s past work. I do also enjoy a good locked room mystery and ones where the entire book takes place in the matter of just a few hours which is what this book did. Because of that, I loved how it was broken up into the different hours so it came off like a countdown to the end. Mixed with the various POVs, it made for a quick read that was easy to fly through.

As for the thriller/ mystery side of things, I was invested early on in wanting to know and understand why Anna had gathered the six individuals and what they were complicit in. However, I do feel like a lot of the good stuff ended up being revealed earlier on in the story and train ride, so the story did lose a little steam for me in the middle.

There was also the matter of people being picked off on the train one by one and trying to figure out who the murderer was. Though there were some surprises mixed in, I don’t think the ultimate reveal was that shocking and at the end I did feel a little underwhelmed with how it all played out.

I also didn’t find any of the characters to be very likable and I had a hard time really empathizing with the MC, Anna, even though I feel like I was supposed to? And I feel like to the lack of connection I had with the characters made me enjoy this a tad less than I would have liked.

Overall, this may not have been my favorite Riley Sager book or thriller, but there wasn’t anything bad about it, but it also didn’t feel super memorable either. But, I am positive fans will still devour this up and like it, so if this sounds like it may be for you, check it out when it releases this summer!

Big shoutout to NetGalley for this one! They saved me from preordering...

It pains me to write this review. I feel as if I need to preface what I have to say about this newest Sager novel with a few pertinent facts. Firstly, I am a big self proclaimed Sager fanatic. I have read all of his previous novels, pre-ordered most of them, and rated almost all of them 4 to 5 stars. This is the first time I have ever truly been disappointed by something Sager has written. Second, I am a huge fan of the movie Clue. It's probably one of my all time favorite comfort films and I could most likely recite it forwards and backwards.

<u>With a Vengeance</u> is truly just the plot of the film Clue in the setting of Agatha Christie's <u>Murder on the Orient Express</u>. The only truly original aspects of this novel to be found are that of the background story of Anna and her motive. But I must point out that there are characters and plot devices in this novel that, honestly, felt like they were lifted straight out of the film Clue. I will not divulge exact scenes so as to not spoil anything. But if you're a Clue movie junkie such as myself, read this book and see what you think.

I honestly feel that Sager's book deal to produce a new novel every summer is now hindering his writing ability. Writing and publishing a book in under a year is a huge feat. I know that Sager is a very talented author, but this book is without a doubt the worst thing his name has ever been attached to. I could not keep myself interested or invested in a story that I felt I had already read numerous times before. To finish this one was truly a struggle and I was so happy to finally disembark from this particular journey.

This book had all the elements of a solid thriller—suspense, twists, and an intriguing setup—but ultimately fell short in execution. While the book picked up slightly n the middle, the overall plot was highly predictable, making it easy to see where the story was headed and who was behind everything. I've only read one other book by Sager, and felt the same but was hoping this was would turn out different. I thought it was going to be like Agatha Christie but the the lack of real surprises made it feel a bit underwhelming. It wasn’t a terrible read, just not particularly memorable or one of my favourite reads. I think if you're a fan of Sage, you'll enjoy it but don’t expect to be blown away.

I had a tough time with this one. Did I binge it one sitting (basically)? Yes. But I felt really let down by the storyline. I felt like it was more of a mystery and there was a promise there based on the synopsis but it felt so underdeveloped.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for this ARC. Riley Sager is one of my favorite authors. I’ve loved all his previous books! Including his very first three written under his name Todd Ritter. With a Vengeance is a departure for Mr. Sager. This is a closed room murder mystery aboard a luxury train hurtling through the night from Philadelphia to Chicago in 1954, ala Agatha Christie. Anna Matheson, whose father’s company designed and built this train, the Philadelphia Phoenix, has invited five people, she blames for the destruction of her family, to take this overnight trip. She plans to get vengeance on this group and deliver them to the authorities in Chicago. But, of course, this being a Riley Sager novel, nothing goes to plan and people start getting murdered one by one. Overall I enjoyed this book for the most part. And, it being a Riley Sager novel, I would gladly recommend it. But there were a few issues I’m not used to when reading a Sager novel. The revolving door of who the killer may or may not be, and who may or may not be actually dead, became pretty ridiculous to me. And I did not enjoy the cartoonish action sequence towards the end. And there was one final twist that left me scratching my head as to why and how did it add to the story and not subtract from its believability. As stated earlier though, I would recommend this book overall. It was an enjoyable journey, with a few bumps.

Total transparency, this was not my favorite by Riley. It was so slow and times and honestly all the twists were very predictable. I'm used to his writings being more horror, slash thriller but this just seems like a "locked door" thriller or an Agatha Christie novel. I almost DNF a few times but respect this author too much to do that. The ending was predictable and it was all just okay.

Again, not his usual writing style. I could be an outlier here but I didn't really enjoy it. Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

three stars rounded up.

Riley Sager has yet to write a novel that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. A train, murder, and a mystery… I thought I had the entire storyline figured out and as usual, I was wrong. 5 stars for With a Vengeance, I’ll anxiously await Sager’s next thriller!

Sager takes on Agatha Christie with a train ride to Hell!

Sager has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read "Final Girls." I promised myself that I would read and rave about everything he releases into this world, even if it were just a note written on a napkin. That's how much I love his work.

However, this latest book felt like a train ride from hell. It was incredibly boring, and I almost gave up on it several times. In hindsight, I probably should have. The story added absolutely nothing new; it felt like a recycled tale from other authors, offering no fresh perspective or originality.

Trains are supposed to move fast but this one was slow going. The concept of getting everyone on the train was intriguing, yet it wasn't enough to keep me fully engaged. The mysteries on and off the train put me to sleep. Every time I got amped up to read the story, I would read a few pages, and instantly get annoyed or bored. Why the hell was everyone's full name used every single damn time they were mentioned? I think my eyes are stuck from rolling them so much.

'With a Vengeance' was the story that I wanted more out of. Agatha Christie is screaming from wherever her soul is and she's mad as hell. I love the books from Sager but this is one I want to forget.

Riley Sager is a top-notch author. His thrillers grab the reader’s attention and demand they keep reading. Although I’ve never liked locked room mysteries with multiple people to keep track of, Riley Sager turns in a masterful story. The conclusion is satisfying and could even lead to a sequel.

Entertaining! A solid who dunnit mystery! This book isn't Sager's usual paranormal style, but I enjoyed it. I liked the MC and the time period.

Now, I love Riley Sager, he is one of my favorite authors! That being said, I don't necessarily love every single one of his books. I've loved the last few so one that would disappoint was due.

The premise of With a Vengeance gives off 'Murder on the Orient Express' meets 'And Then There Were None' vibes and I was here for it!! The book started off interesting but I couldn't get over the main characters intentions. Anna Matheson cons every person who had a hand in the traumatic downfall of her family onto a train that is travelling from Philadelphia to Chicago. She tells everyone immediately after they've left that she has all the evidence she could ever need to show their guilt and have them arrested. The FBI is waiting in Chicago to arrest them when they arrive and for the next 13 hours, everyone will suffer through a train ride together. And that was her plan! Kind of anticlimactic sounding but it soon turns deadly as people start dying and Anna is desperate to make it to Chicago in one piece. Twist upon twist keep you guessing what will happen next but it became too repetitive and made the twists lose their oomph.

I still will read anything Riley Sager writes and his books are very popular at the library so we'll definitely be ordering this! I'll just hope for a better one next time and reread his other books in the meantime!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Incredible book. I was not expecting to love it as much as I did. Sager packs so much into one night on a train. Twists and turns in every chapter! This book had me gasping and yelling out loud. Everyone needs to add this book to their 2025 TBR list right now.

In his upcoming novel With a Vengeance, Riley Sager shows his range! This book reads like a classic murder mystery, a nod to Queen Agatha Christie herself. But it's certainly got plenty of Sager's signature propulsive plotting and whiplash-inducing twists.

Sager is a titan in the thriller genre and for good reason! Each of his books are unique from one another. He's doing something fresh and interesting in each and every one and really exploring all facets of the genre. It's impossible for me to pick an absolute favorite of his books, but With a Vengeance is certainly up there! Out 06/10!!!

First of all, I know I am in for a treat with any Riley Sager book. Second, I want to book a train ride and re-read this book again to get the full twisty, creepy experience. I predict this will be a top five thriller released this year with everything a reader could possibly want from thrills, chills, and twists and turns. Definitely Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express vibes! With a Vengeance will take you on the ride of your life. Perfect for book club!

Riley Sager is an absolutely amazing writer and With a Vengeance is now at the top of the list as one of my favorites. The multiple points of view are written flawlessly. The twists and turns a long the way will keep you second guessing until the very end. Please please please do yourself a favor a read this as soon as you possibly can!

4.5 stars, rounded up to a 5.

Riley Sager hits it out of the park with a thrilling murder mystery for fans of Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, Clue, or Glass Onion.

My Quick Takes:
- 4.5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
- Language 🤐 moderate
- Spice ❤️‍🔥 closed-door (past)
- Content 🤔 death, violence, murder, same sex relationship

Adding this into my top 3 favorite Sager novels. I loved the forced proximity, all the POVs, and how it seemingly bridged the gap between cozy murder mystery and thriller. Having the plot set in the 50’s gave it an edge of nostalgia that I enjoyed as well. Additionally, it had flashbacks to the ‘40’s and WW2, making it a great option for historical fiction readers that may want to expand their reading horizons.

In true Sager form, the twists and turns keep coming. Everyone is a suspect and Sager continually lured the reader into a false sense of security. I’m 0 for 9 on being able to figure out the ending of Sager’s novels and that’s just the way I like it.