Riley Sager is a master of atmosphere. Whether I loved the plot or just enjoyed it, the atmosphere of suspense and chill is always palpable. With a Vengeance is no different, however, the plot marks a slight departure from Sager’s last book, Middle of the Night, which I reviewed last summer. Sager is technically a horror writer, but With a Vengeance is a closed room mystery, as most books this year are, in the style of Agatha Christie.  A train with only eight passengers and one conductor. At least that is how Anna Matheson has planned it. She has selected the passengers and bought out the whole train to seek revenge on the people who killed her brother and ruined her father’s railroad empire. Not through death but the delivery of the group to the FBI at the end of the line. Her perfect plot is interrupted by unexpected deaths and passengers as the passengers begin to throw wrenches into the carefully orchestrated plans she has enacted. As the closed room gets wider and wider, the plot and the mysterious atmosphere thicken. Each of the original passengers’ sins emerge as they face the consequence of a well-orchestrated plot by Anna’s father’s railroad rival…who is not on the train. Instead, Anna’s former lover, his son, has stolen his invitation and arrives in his stead. Anna must choose how to ride the rails of the new track they are all stuck on as she faces her own ghosts from the past. This is Sager’s best book since Lock Every Door in 2019, the book that got me hooked on him.