With a Vengeance by Riley Sager
on June 12, 2025
Genres: Fiction / Feminist, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Hard-Boiled, Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths, Fiction / Thrillers / Political, Fiction / Thrillers / Psychological, Fiction / Thrillers / Suspense, Technology & Engineering / Civil / Transportation, Transportation / Railroads / General
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
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In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution. Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of thirteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served. But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge, and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead. With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them, even though it means putting her own life at risk.
This was my first Riley Sager book. Though I was not fully impressed, I wasn’t disappointed either. Just more Blah. I easily will forget this novel, but I enjoyed while I read it. I felt like something was missing, the dark, mysterious, and gritty atmosphere of this train carrying a murderer. The train should have held much more of an impact, but instead, other than that they reference where things are occurring, it didn’t add to the ambience as much as I would have liked. The first third of the book is spent introducing various characters both on the train and in the past, and I found myself both a bit overwhelmed with the amount of characters, while also feeling like the pacing was moving incredibly slow. Though there was still an entertainment factor here that can’t be discounted.
I rated this novel 3.5 stars. The pacing of the book was extremely slow at times, and there were chapters of information that could have been edited out as it dragged out the story and took away from the thrilling suspense. For me, the ending was very convoluted and WAY over the top, as well as too many “twists” that it just kept getting messy and confusing.
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