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Riley Sager's With a Vengeance is an ambitious locked-room thriller set aboard a luxury overnight train in 1954, and it represents a clear departure from the author's usual contemporary settings. The premise is irresistible: Anna Matheson, twelve years after watching six people destroy her family, lures each of them onto the Philadelphia Phoenix - a train once owned by her railroad tycoon father - for a thirteen-hour journey from Philadelphia to Chicago. Her plan is to extract confessions and deliver the conspirators to the FBI at the end of the line. When one of the passengers turns up dead before dawn, Anna finds herself trapped in a speeding pressure cooker with desperate people, at least one of whom is willing to kill.

The Agatha Christie influence is unmistakable. The novel plays like a mash-up of Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None, filtered through Sager's own sensibility for psychological suspense. The closed setting works well - there is a claustrophobic tension to the train that keeps the pages turning, and the 1954 period detail adds a layer of atmosphere that feels cinematic in the best sense. There are shades of Hitchcock here too, particularly Strangers on a Train, and when the story is firing on all cylinders it delivers genuine thrills.

Anna herself is a compelling figure - sharp, grief-stricken, and relentless in her pursuit of justice. The emotional stakes are real, and Sager gives appropriate weight to her pain without letting it stall the narrative. That said, there is a flatness to her characterisation that becomes harder to ignore as the book progresses. Her obsession with vengeance is all-consuming to the point where she feels more like a vehicle for the plot than a fully realised person. She has no discernible life beyond this mission, no ambitions or desires that existed before - or might exist after - her crusade. The supporting cast of antagonists are sketchy from the outset, which makes it difficult to build a convincing case against any one of them.

And then there are the twists. Sager has always been a twist-driven writer, but here the impulse runs unchecked. The sheer volume of reversals - fake deaths, shifting alliances, last-minute revelations - starts to feel relentless rather than exciting. By the third or fourth dramatic fake-out, the impact diminishes considerably. Some of the final turns feel as though they have been pulled from thin air rather than earned by the preceding narrative, and one late-stage moment where the novel essentially acknowledges its own plot hole is a baffling choice.

The pacing, at least, is strong for most of the journey. Things move quickly enough that it is easy to be swept along, and readers who enjoy a twisty, propulsive thriller will find plenty to keep them engaged. It is the kind of book that works best when you surrender to the ride rather than scrutinise the mechanics.

With a Vengeance is not Sager's finest work, but it is a solidly entertaining revenge thriller with a killer premise and enough tension to justify the trip. Fans of classic whodunits and closed-room mysteries will find much to enjoy - just be prepared for a few more curveballs than the story can comfortably support.