Our Take

Riley Sager, master of the propulsive page-turner, delivers his most ingeniously plotted thriller yet with With a Vengeance. The setup is irresistible: Murder on the Orient Express meets Gone Girl, with a protagonist whose elaborate revenge scheme becomes infinitely more complicated when someone starts killing her targets before she can expose them. What makes this work so brilliantly is the moral complexity Sager brings to Anna's character—we root for her quest for justice while questioning whether revenge can ever truly satisfy. The 1954 setting adds rich atmospheric detail and clever plotting possibilities in an era before cell phones and instant communication, when a speeding train truly becomes an isolated murder scene. Sager's pacing is relentless; each chapter ratchets up the tension as the body count rises and suspicions shift among the confined passengers. The dual mystery structure—who destroyed Anna's family in 1942, and who's killing them now—creates delicious tension that pays off with genuinely shocking revelations. This is Sager at his best: smart, twisty, and impossible to put down. Fans of The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware or The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton will devour this in one breathless sitting. It's a thriller that satisfies on every level—clever premise, breakneck pacing, complex protagonist, and twists that genuinely surprise.