64 pages • 2 hours read
With a Vengeance
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Prologue-Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussions and depictions of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, and emotional abuse.
Part 1: “7 p.m.: Thirteen Hours to Chicago” - Part 2: “8 p.m.: Twelve Hours to Chicago”
Prologue Summary: “Departure”
Aboard the Philadelphia Phoenix in 1954, which runs from Philadelphia to Chicago and can hold hundreds of people, there are only eight people. Seven are alive, and one is dead. Anna Matheson invited everyone aboard with a personalized letter threatening their secrets if they refused to take the 13-hour journey. Anna has a plan, but the person’s death is not part of it. Now, there are five guests, Anna, Anna’s accomplice, and the corpse. It was not a natural or painless death, and Anna knows that more murders will follow.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Anna stands in her cabin aboard the Philadelphia Phoenix, rehearsing the speech she plans to give to the train’s passengers. Anna chose the Phoenix because of its connection to her family. Her grandfather founded Union Atlantic Railroad, which designed and produced its own cars and locomotives, including the Phoenix. The company passed down to Anna’s father. Anna’s mother designed the train’s interiors. Debuting in 1937, the Phoenix is important to Anna, and she’s chosen it to remind the others of what she’s lost.
Seamus, Anna’s accomplice, knocks and tells her that everyone is aboard. Burt, an experienced man who was the only person to send Anna and her mother condolences after Anna’s father’s death, is the conductor.
