With a Vengeance by Riley Sager (Hodder&Stoughton)

Riley Sager’s With a Vengeance hurls readers into a tense revenge thriller set almost entirely on a lavish overnight train. The protagonist, Anna Matheson, arranges a ride with the powerful figures who destroyed her family, aiming for confessions and eventual justice. 

Anna Matheson is at the story’s core. She is strikingly human, determined, conflicted, and unpredictable in moments of crisis. Her mission of revenge is complicated by the sudden outbreak of violence: after a murder derails her original plan, Anna is forced to protect the very people she once saw as targets. This inversion, where the avenger must shield her would-be enemies, underscores the novel’s interest in moral ambiguity. Anna’s capacity for both grudge and compassion is handled with nuance, holding attention as stakes, ethical and physical, rise.

The supporting cast, assembled from Anna’s past, brings color but is at times less sharply drawn. Some characters blur together, reflecting the transience and anonymity of travel itself. What stands out is not individual characterization but the shifting trust and suspicion across the group. Their shared predicament, trapped with an unknown murderer in claustrophobic luxury, amplifies tension and forces uneasy alliances. The closed setting not only strengthens the mystery but also serves as a metaphor for psychological confinement, echoing how old grievances and unresolved trauma can lock people in cycles of suspicion and regret.

Sager’s style borrows from classic whodunits, reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, but filters this lineage through a contemporary, noir-influenced sensibility. The prose is sleek, atmospheric, and occasionally chilly. The use of shifting timelines keeps the reader off-balance, inviting a constant re-evaluation of motives and facts. The novel’s brisk pace allows little respite, and while some plot elements recall other thrillers, the emotional layers and relentless tension hold the narrative together.

The central themes, justice, revenge, and the limits of closure, resonate both in the novel and in current research on human responses to stress and wrongs endured. Anna’s journey mirrors these tensions, questioning whether acts of retribution heal or deepen wounds. Confinement, vulnerability, and disrupted plans are also key in psychological research on stress and coping, especially when individuals are isolated or forced to navigate fraught social dynamics.

With a Vengeance stands as a memorable modern thriller that honors classic mystery frameworks while pushing its protagonist into sharper, darker territory. Anna’s evolution, the train’s inescapable setting, and the constant churn of suspicion and uneasy loyalty combine to produce a work that is both satisfying and unsettling. 

4/5