One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.
Riley Sager is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including Final Girls, Middle of the Night and The Only One Left. His novels have been published in over 35 countries, with more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. With a Vengeance will be published on June 10 by Dutton Books and has already been named by BookBub as one of the best books of summer.
Because Riley Sager is basically a unicorn given his career backstory (see clip below) and string of hits, I’m structuring this interview different than most. The following is a compilation of questions and some of my favorite Riley answers.
Sarah Reida: What inspired this story? It’s a bit different from other Riley Sager novels.
Riley Sager: There were an insane number of influences! I got the idea in the summer of 2023, which was the Summer of Train Scenes–Bullet Train, Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I saw all of these and thought, it might be really fun to set a book on a train. Maybe I should do Murder on the Orient Express! And then that morphed into, And Then There Were None (on the Orient Express). Then there’s the show, Revenge. . . .
“I’ve always wanted to do a revenge novel”
(Riley Sager as Dr. Evil).
SR: Anna is your main character. Tell us about her.
RS: She was the daughter of a railroad magnate, and something happened in 1942 to ruin her father, kill her brother, and leave her mother devastated. Six people led to the downfall of her family, and Anna’s big plan is to get them on the train her father created to confront them with the evidence of their role before delivering them to the authorities. But, once onboard, someone starts killing them. So she has this weird moral dilemma: she wants revenge, but she doesn’t want to end their lives and ends up having to protect them. And they’re all awful people.
SR: Would you classify With a Vengeance as a mystery or a thriller?
RS: I don’t try to label my books and l think it’s whatever people want to call this. It’s historical fiction, and a mystery, but it also has thriller elements like the train component and the countdown. I would say this one is a Riley Sager book wearing vintage clothes.
We then talked about the elements of With a Vengeance–the use of a ticking clock (hours until the train’s arrival in Chicago), the backdrop of the train, how the ending changed during the writing process.
Then I had to ask:
SR: As a writer looking back, what was the first book that was important to you?
RS: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first book to really transport me. That was the first time that happened for me, and before that, I didn’t realize that was possible. That was a very special thing.
And then there was And Then There Were None. That was my first grownup book–my sister was reading it for school, and I think I was in sixth grade at the time. Before that, I didn’t know books like that existed. I think it was the first psychological thriller. Everything before that was a mystery.
SR: Do you do anything to celebrate finishing a book?
RS: I like to do nothing. But there’s also bourbon and jigsaw puzzles.
As a writer myself, Riley Sager fascinates me most because of his backstory. He’s hugely popular now, but he started his writing career under his given name, which is Todd Ritter. After releasing two books, he wrote Final Girls (his debut thriller; fun fact: one of the audiobook narrators also narrates With a Vengeance) and his agent devised a plan to make sure it was the hit it deserved to be. And the rest is history. Hear all about it in this video:
“If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. You just need to stick with it, persevere, write the best book you can, and fingers crossed get lucky.”
–Todd Ritter (aka Riley Sager)
And of course I had to ask this:
SR: What is the weirdest or most offensive question you’ve gotten during a book tour?
You have to watch the clip to hear his answer:
And, since I don’t already have a huge TBR pile, I asked him the best book he’s read over the last year. Here’s his response and our dialogue on the subject, in which we somehow ended up talking about Britney Spears:
Sadly, my interview included one huge missed opportunity. Apparently, Riley is a huge Swiftie, and I neglected to inquire into his favorite Taylor song. For that, I am profoundly sorry. However, I did learn that Riley’s book tour is imminent, so if you’re interested in the answer to that question and in one of the following towns, you can ask him yourself at one of the events listed below.
June 9 (New York, NY)–Barnes & Noble at Union Station
June 10 (Houston, TX)–Murder by the Book
June 11 (Austin, TX)–Bookpeople
June 12 (Atlanta, GA)–Eagle Eye Book Shop
June 13 (Nashville, TN)–Parnassus Books
June 16 (Plainville, MA)–An Unlikely Story
June 17 (Princeton, NJ)–Barnes & Noble (Princeton)
June 18 (Newtown, PA)–Newtown Bookshop
October 16 (Manchester, VT)-Northshire Bookstore
About the Interviewer: A writer of dark comedy thrillers, Sarah Reida is in the process of revising her sophomore novel. Her debut, Neighborhood Watch, received a Kirkus Star and was honored as an Amazon editorial pick as one of the Best Books of the Year So Far 2024. Join Sarah’s elite group of Instagram followers here.
