With a Vengeance: A Novel

by Riley Sager Narrated by Erin Bennett

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

All aboard Riley Sager's latest unrelenting thriller. A story about desperate retribution during one thirteen-hour train ride, this action-packed ticking-clock whodunit will keep you guessing until the very end.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

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.

Editorial Reviews

#1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden

With a Vengeance is a locked room thriller at its best! Nonstop suspense with twists and turns that will leave your head spinning!

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Strangers David Baldacci

A clever and fun mashup of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. Sager wields a deft hand in bringing all the elements together into a rip-roaring, tension-filled tale of greed, murder, and revenge. Enjoy the ride on the Phoenix.

#1 New York Times bestselling author David Baldacci

A clever and fun mashup of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. Sager wields a deft hand in bringing all the elements together into a rip-roaring, tension-filled tale of greed, murder, and revenge. Enjoy the ride on the Phoenix.

From the Publisher

Sager knows how to tell a good story that keeps us guessing.”
–Washington Post

"[A] gripping locked room thriller."
–People

“At the top of his game. Sager delivers a thriller so tautly written, so tightly constructed, that readers will emerge from the book breathless and in a mild state of shock. With this book, Sager has committed an act of brilliance.”
–Booklist

“The pacing is relentless, the plotting Agatha Christie-esque and the cinematic feel is worthy of an Alfred Hitchcock.”
–BookPage

“Murder aboard a luxury train gets a fresh spin in this ultratwisty historical thriller . . . For readers seeking a page-turner with a kick-ass female protagonist, this punches the ticket.”
–Publishers Weekly

"With a Vengeance is a locked room thriller at its best! Nonstop suspense with twists and turns that will leave your head spinning!"
–#1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden

“A clever and fun mashup of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. Sager wields a deft hand in bringing all the elements together into a rip-roaring, tension-filled tale of greed, murder, and revenge. Enjoy the ride on the Phoenix.”
–David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Strangers in Time

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191133072
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/10/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

DEPARTURE




The train isn't empty, although it certainly feels that way. Whole sections currently sit unused. Coach cars. Dining car. Sleeper. All are vacant and silent save for the echo of the train itself clickety-clacking over the tracks. This train that can hold dozens, even hundreds, is occupied by only eight people.

Seven are alive.

One is dead.

That wasn't the case a minute ago, when the whole lot of them were very much alive. But unexpected things happen when traveling by train, and this, apparently, is one of them. It certainly took Anna Matheson off guard. Her reaction makes it clear this isn't the plan at all. She seems honestly distressed by the body now splayed flat-backed on the floor of the first-class lounge.

A strange reaction.

Anna has every reason to want the others dead.

Those others, by the way, are the six people aboard this train at her invitation. One that, had they know who was doing the inviting, all would have declined.




Your singular presence is requested on an overnight
rail journey from Philadelphia to Chicago
beginning the evening of December 14
aboard the Philadelphia Phoenix

Departing Philadelphia at 7 p.m. EST
Arriving in Chicago at 7 a.m. CST




Not particularly compelling, as invitations go. It's 1954, after all. No one wants to spend thirteen hours on a train when United Air Lines can get you to Chicago in just under three. Anna knew this, of course, which was why she added a handwritten message on the back, specific to each recipient. Although their misdeeds are the same, their secrets are different.

Those individualized notes were all it took to get the six of them here. They didn't care that they had no idea who the invitation came from or why it was extended to them. Nor were they bothered by the lack of a way to RSVP. They all showed up at the scheduled departure time, invitation in hand. Now here they are—five guests, one hostess, her accomplice, and a corpse.

Not enough time has passed for color to drain from the dead person's face. Their eyes are wide open and aimed at the ceiling, and flecks of crimson stain the foam still bubbling at the edges of their mouth.

This, it's clear, was not a natural death.

Nor was it painless.

At least it was quick, the time between the first sign that something was amiss and sudden death totaling less than a minute. The victim didn't even have a chance to let go of the white linen yanked off a cocktail table as they fell. One end of the tablecloth remains gripped in lifeless fingers. The rest of it still clings to the table, soaked through with gin spilled from an overturned martini glass.

In another minute, someone will have the good sense to use a dry tablecloth to cover the corpse. Until then, everyone stares at it in combinations of shock and disbelief, none more so than Anna, over whose face ripple a thousand emotions. The biggest of them, though, is fear.

Because now that one of the passengers has been murdered—by someone else in that very car—she fears it's only a matter of time before it happens again.

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