Riley Sager is one of my favorite authors, so getting this as an ARC was super cool. I was actually pretty hooked by the first half and I love a good locked room mystery, and it started off with the setup I was hoping for.

But wow… by the time I got to the second half, it felt like everything completely went off the rails (lol). There were so many twists thrown in back to back that it gave me whiplash. I ended up skimming through the last stretch because it was just too much and honestly I just wanted it to be over.

I still enjoyed the atmosphere and the original setup, so it wasn’t a total miss. Just not one of my favorites from Sager. Hoping the next one clicks more for me!

Wow. Loved every page. Loaded with suspense and mystery. Everything Riley Sager writes is a mut read.

4 ⭐️
First off, thank you to Dutton Books, Netgalley, and Riley Sager for the arc! Riley Sager is in my top 3 favorite authors so it was surreal to receive an arc of his new book.

I love how Sager always creates this dark, gothic, moody atmosphere with every story he writes! He knows how to set each scene and make you sit on the edge of your seat. I thought the train setting in the 50’s was such a perfect way to set up a mystery/thriller. It gave me Agatha Christie vibes and I couldn’t put it down!🫆🚂🕵🏻‍♂️

Every character was quirky and totally different from each other. I was able to imagine each one in my head perfectly which made the story so much more fun to read. I loved Anna’s determination to stick to her plan. I felt that she really cared about every single person on the train, even though they were the reason her family was destroyed. I related to her love for her family and the fact that she’d do anything to get justice for them. ❤️

Even though this wasn’t my favorite Riley Sager book, he really never misses for me. If you like fast-paced mystery/thrillers with lots of unique characters, twists and turns, and not knowing what’s going to happen until the very last page, then this is for you!

I always have to check out Sager's new books. Sometimes I love them, sometimes they're just ok….but something about them always intrigues me. This one was very different from his previous books. With Agatha Christie Christie vibes, Sager gives us a locked room, whodunnit mystery taking place on a train. In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson's life, and now, 12 yrs later, she is going to get revenge. She lures these people, under false pretenses, onto an overnight luxury train ride, traveling from Philly to Chicago. She plans to confront them, get them to confess, and then deliver them to the authorities waiting at the end. But things don't go as planned. Someone is murdered. Now she must figure out who the killer is, and protect the people she hates most.

This was a fun “ride”. This is a slow burn, but the mystery of figuring out who the killer was kept me engaged. The ending picked up, and had more action. I loved the train setting too. Happy I had the chance to check this one out.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of With a Vengeance by Riley Sager.

With a Vengeance took on a much different tone than another other Sager novel I have read, but that didn't make it less enjoyable! This was a locked room mystery very reminiscent of the classics. Great plot, great action, and kept me guessing as to who the killer(s) was until it was revealed.

Oof. Okay, this pains me to say, but Riley Sager missed the mark with this one. I normally LOVE his books, but this felt very underwhelming and overdone... it fell totally flat. I listened to the audiobook while I read along on my Kindle, and the narrator did nothing to help add enthusiasm for the plot. Thank you, NetGalley!

Sager is an auto-read author for me - this book reminds me of his earlier books as I couldn't put it down. His books were made to be read in the summer, and this one, a closed room mystery on a train, will not disappoint!

The setting invokes a classic murder mystery feels but story feels familiarly Sager-like with the twists that keep coming. This felt very much like reading Riley Sager book, which for me is absolutely a positive experience, but I could see the twists getting on some people's nerve.

Did Riley Sager lose his mojo?

With a Vengeance is just another remake of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. There is literally nothing new or exciting here.

I am so disappointed! After last year’s super mediocre Middle of the Night, I was really hoping this book would blow me away. Unfortunately, the plot lacks originality and the characters are way too underdeveloped. Anna Matheson is a boring MC and I didn’t buy her extraordinary sleuthing skills.

I attended Sager’s book tour last year, and he mentioned that he set this book in the past so that he could avoid having to incorporate complicated technology into the plot. However, this book does not feel like a period piece at all.

The first three hours of this book crawl by at a snail’s pace. But, once the train got moving, the plot picked up and I became more invested. Sager does succeed at casting doubt on all of the characters and throwing in several twists. But…it was a little too late to win me over.

Unfortunately, With a Vengeance’s lack of originality, mediocrity, and uninspired characters left me bored and sorry that I wasted my time reading it. I know Sager is capable of so much better, ie. The Only One Left, so I still plan to read his next offering.

2.5/5 stars rounded up

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for the ARC of With a Vengeance in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

With a Vengeance by Riley Sager is a gripping, high-stakes locked-room thriller set on a lavish 1950s train ride. Anna Matheson lures six people she blames for destroying her family onto one overnight journey—but a murder soon twists her plan into a fight for survival. Chillingly atmospheric, fast‑paced, and rich with classic mystery twists, it offers both Hitchcockian tension and that familiar Sager flair.

This wasn't the most believable of mysteries and there may have been one twist too many but there is something about murders on a luxury train in the 1940's that had me hooked. I really enjoyed the ride.

I was either going to love his new release or not, and it’s the latter. That’s the way it goes with his stories. He went in a very different direction with this closed murder mystery. I think he tried to achieve too much with too many characters so I felt for none of them. I also felt like some of the twists verged on campy. It’s just not my cup tea, but at least this one didn’t make me mad like some others did. I recommend this to Agatha Christie mystery readers.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing this arc!

Riley Sager is back! This is a great, fast paced, mystery that is reminiscent of Agatha Christie. If you go into his book expecting a thriller with his usual twists you may be disappointed. This was the perfect old fashioned mystery set on a train in 1954. Even though the book takes place in the winter it was still a great beach read. I read it in one day!

I’m not going to lie, overall I’m a Sager fan but this one is definitely in my top two of his.

Anna is just a girl who wants the six people responsible for her whole family’s ☠️ to face justice. What better idea than to round all six people onto a train ride with no one else? What could possibly go wrong….

EVERYTHING CAN AND DOES GO WRONG.

There’s ☠️ and theres plot twist after plot twist.

While I don’t read a lot of murder mystery whodunnit vibes, I ate this book up.

Love this author. Always a totally wild ride!!!
So many twists & turns, and the creep factor was way up there.

Riley Sager’s latest novel, ‘With a Vengeance’ takes us back to 1942 on a train murder mystery. While I appreciate authors, who mix up the types of thrillers they write, this one did not cut it for me.
There was a lot of repetition, the characters fell flat, and I was not as pulled into the story as I have in his other novels.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC copy of this in exchange for an honest review.

I highly enjoy Riley Sager, so this was an auto request for me. While I've honestly been hit and miss with some of his other titles, this gave off Agatha Christie vibes in the best way.

And it was very Agatha esque. I enjoyed the narrative of the train, the locked room mystery, and the slow unfolding of each character. I think that there could have been more context clues as to the time and place of the story (took me a while to figure out what the time period was but maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention), and parts were predictable (as is often the case with mysteries). Other parts though caught me totally off guard and I really enjoyed them!

Overall, this is a fun clue like thriller that scratches some itches for a summer mystery read (or winter - kinda matches the setting).

Per usual, Riley Sager brings an unputdownable thriller packed with mystery and intrigue. I loved the setting of this new novel being a train with so much importance to the character. This is one I would not mind seeing as a movie!

This is unfortunately my most meh Riley Sager novel that I've read to date. While it was pretty fast-paced and entertaining, I found the characters to all be unlikeable and dumb, the ending a bit predictable, and the writing a little bit grating. The fact that 90% of the time Anna narrates with other characters' full names (Judd Dodge for example) drove me NUTS for some reason 😭

With A Vengeance by Riley Sager was yet another departure from his previous books. WAV is a locked room suspenseful story a la Agatha Christie.

A facet of RS's books that I adore is his mixture of (3) movies i.e. The Only One Left = Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Lizzie Borden & Misery. So when I saw the cover of WAV, I naturally assumed it would be a callback of: Strangers on a Train and some others.

WAV is about vengeance and bringing the guilty to justice. The flawed main character is determined to bring some bad people to justice, and she feels that she needs an explanation, person to person, before that can happen. A flaw in her plan is that she expects justice to be served in a court of law, whereas others believe justice is best served with an eye for an eye.

If someone destroyed you and your family, how would you enact justice?