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Read 6:40 to Montreal in one sitting—like literally skipped meals and notifications. It’s basically the VIA Rail trip from hell, but make it fun and murdery. (As someone who's spent way too much time on the actual Toronto–Montreal line, can confirm this unlocked a new fear.)

Agatha’s a bestselling author with imposter syndrome, a husband who thinks the cure to writer’s block is a scenic train ride (??), and a secret that’s slowly cooking in her carry-on. She boards the 6:40 from Toronto to Montreal with Plans™, but naturally, the universe, and a mysteriously dead passenger, derail them. What follows is a locked-room thriller that plays like Agatha Christie meets Fleabag with seasonal depression. And also Via Rail (that part was full on investigative discovery, ifykyk).

It’s claustrophobic, stylish, morally ambiguous. The people in first class are all a little unwell in very aesthetic ways. Think: pastel cashmere, emotional repression, and an overwhelming desire to go off the grid but still have oat milk.

Pros:
> Atmosphere: absolutely nailed the claustrophobic Canadian winter dread. Could practically hear the train creaking and feel the chill.
> Agatha: Loved her quiet chaos, loved the weird marriage, loved the angry woman energy.
> Pacing: Chapters flew by. One more chapter syndrome is real.

Cons:
> Wrapped up a bit too neatly for all the panic and chaos that led there.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Can't wait for everyone to read it come September 23, 2025.

6:40 to Montreal by Eva Jurczyk is basically a locked room mystery as the bulk of the action takes place inside a train car, and when the train gets stuck in a blizzard, the suspects are trapped together, knowing one of them could be a killer.

The story is told in first person from the P.O.V. of the protagonist, Agatha, a bestselling author who is having trouble getting started on her next novel. Her husband, Teddy, buys her a first-class ticket for a six-hour train ride from Toronto to Montreal, with the hope that the peace and quiet will allow her some uninterrupted writing time. Except she can’t get a word on the blank page.

Agatha has had a lot on her mind lately. A devastating melanoma diagnosis has reduced the odds that she will survive long enough to see her young son grow up. Since the cancer diagnosis and radical treatments, she hasn’t been intimate with her long-suffering husband. Recently, she reconnected with a college fling, and this train trip has given her an opportunity to arrange a clandestine hook-up when she gets to Montreal.

Soon after Agatha boards the train and settles in, Finch Weatherby, an obnoxious businessman, insists she is in the window seat he was supposed to have reserved. Agatha digs in at first, but soon relents when she learns there are some nearby vacant rows to which she can relocate.

She is shocked to discover that Cyanne Candel, a woman who used to work for Teddy, is also on the train. Cyanne swears Agatha wrote her runaway bestseller about her and, as a result, has ruined her life. For the first couple of hours, Agatha is afraid to get up and use the lavatory because she’ll have to walk past Cyanne and endure her glares and insults.

Agatha finally gathers the courage to go, and, sure enough, Cyanne confronts her. Eventually, the obsequious customer-service attendant, Dorcas, intervenes in the conflict and shoos them back to their seats. Before that can happen, the train lurches to an unscheduled stop.

When Agatha returns to her seat, Finch appears to have nodded off. She and the other passengers go on about their business and speculate with Dorcas about how long they will be stranded. It later becomes apparent that the train has derailed due to the snowstorm. While Dorcas keeps assuring the passengers that she’s in touch with the engineer and all will soon be well, they remain stuck.

Nothing rouses Finch, and then Agatha and her fellow passengers figure out he’s dead. At first, they believe he passed away from a heart attack or other natural causes. But when they move his body out of the way, they find a deadly Australian funnel-web spider in his seat—the seat that Agatha was originally assigned! Not only does his death appear to be murder, but Agatha might have been the target.

During the remainder of the story, the passengers alternate between mistrusting each other and Dorcas, working together to solve the murder mystery, to realizing that their day has been disrupted by the weather. To add to the emergency, one of the passengers is a diabetic, and he forgot to pack his insulin. The others band together to try to save his life.

The author has created a diverse and memorable cast of characters, and it was fun to watch how they interacted under pressure. The ambiguous ending was confusing and a bit disappointing. Still, readers of locked-room mysteries would probably enjoy this.

This book had all the right themes, but fell a bit flat for me. There are a lot of train thrillers out there so there’s a lot to compare it to, and in the grand scheme of things, I did not feel like this compared to some of the best. Overall, it was fast paced, well-written, and easy to follow, but the twists and turns did not really surprise me nor did they intrigue me. The author did well in writing characters that I liked overall, but the dialogue would shift that for me at times.

Living in Montreal, I couldn't wait to read and review this book. I mean who doesn't like reading books about where they live. Especially fiction.

This book is fast paced. And I love that! The first little bit, it was like a train pulling out of the station, it had to get its momentum started, but when it got up to speed, it really took off.

I don't often read the premise for books; I like the mystery of having no idea of what is going to happen. So I didn't know if they were going to make it to Montreal, if it was going to happen on the train, etc.... I mean we can guess right, but we don't actually know.

The book was great and moving and then about 85% of the way through, it got funky and ended. It was weird? Yeah I am confused. I want to think it could have worked if it was tweaked a little, or things were changed in the setting. But the ending felt too abrupt.

I will say this for Eva Jurczyk, I liked it a lot more than her other book That Night in the Library. I did give this 3 ⭐ because I was guessing up until 85/90% of the book of what was going to happen. And I thought the writing was pretty good, the ending just left so much to be desired.

A wintery retreat with mystery on the train too. This read, focused on the mysterious events with Agatha is a great premise but lacks some suspense and punch. Overall, good read.

The beginning was a mite disjointed, and I didn't like the OCD MC. But it (and she) started to grow on me until I caught on to the sly humor and intensity. Definitely a psychological thriller that is intense and twisty once it grabs you and ties you up until you finish it.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected digital galley from Poisoned Pen Press via NetGalley. Pub Date Sep 23, 2025 ***** review #NetGalley @bookbub @goodreads #LibraryThing
#640toMontreal by Eva Jurczyk @msevav @poisonedpenpress #storygraph #snowboundonatrain
#writersretreat #closedcirclemystery #canlit #unpredictable #psychologicalthriller #gripping #nowifi
@sourcebooks

This book was… okay. The concept had potential, and there were a few moments that hinted at something deeper or more emotionally engaging, but overall it didn’t quite land for me. The story moved along well enough, but it felt like it was missing that extra spark to make it memorable.

The characters were serviceable but didn’t leave much of an impression. I never felt fully connected to their motivations or struggles, and by the end, I wasn’t especially invested in what happened to them. The dialogue was fine, but a bit flat in places.

Pacing-wise, things stayed fairly even—neither dragging nor rushing—but that also meant it lacked real tension or urgency. The writing style is easy to read, though it played things pretty safe stylistically.

In the end, it’s not a bad book—it just didn’t stand out. If you’re looking for something light and easy to get through, this might work for you. But for me, it was a middle-of-the-road read that I’ll probably forget pretty quickly.

I enjoyed the setting of the story, which takes place on a train. This, and the cover of the book, is what attracted me first. I really liked the first half of the book - I got through it fast, which is a positive for a thriller/mystery. Unfortunately the ending felt rushed and too over the top.

Thank you to Netgalley for a copy in exchange for honest review. All the following is my honest opinion. All thoughts are my own.

I loved the cover of this book, however just because the book cover is beautiful doesn't mean the book is going to be great. The cover intrigued me but the writing just fell short. Agatha's husband gifts her a first class ticket on a scenic train from Toronto to Montreal for a writing retreat. But then the train breaks down suddenly and everything goes crazy. A passenger dies mysteriously and suddenly Agatha is fighting for her life. A survival against the unknown. Will she make it off the train alive?

I had a hard time connecting with the characters. The writing was a little bit slow for my liking. I almost DNFed a few times. The chapters were broken up and it just seemed like I couldn't get the flow going to enjoy this book. Maybe in the future I could give it another time but for the time being, I just did not enjoy it.



Hate to say it but the cover was the best part of this book.

Trying to work on a train ride sounds promising… until you're stuck with a dead body in a murder mystery!

Agatha's husband gifts her a train ticket to work on her next best-selling book aboard a route from Toronto to Montreal. Many issues, people, and circumstances interrupt her plans to write while on the train and any further effort is derailed when the train gets stuck and one passenger dies spurring a whodunit style murder mystery of accusations.

Unfortunately, this book was not my cup of tea. I really liked the premise of the story and the synopsis sounded really interesting, but I had a hard time with the writing style and how the story developed. I lost interest pretty early on and felt the book was too long and it took a while to finish because I kept losing interest. It was a slow-paced read with a bit of an unreliable narrator because she felt unhinged/unrelatable with frequent jumps from one train of thought to the next.

What I enjoyed:
- There was a lot of introspective ambiguity surrounding the murder mystery.
- It reminded me a bit of a game of Clue if it were set on a train.

It's a 3/5 because I can see the appeal for others and it had a really strong potential set up to be interesting, but my main issues were with the characters and overall plot. While thrillers aren't my go-to genre, I was in the mood for something twisty but this wasn't quite what I expected overall.

Thanks to Netgalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and Eva Jurczyk for sending me an ARC of 6:40 to Montreal in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley, for a digital copy of this book.

This took me a little bit to get my thoughts together on this book. Overall, I liked it. There was action and suspense. When the passengers are all on the train car together and get locked in, then suspicion falls to each person II really enjoyed that. What i didn't get was if the "killer" went after a specific target or if it was an accidental victim. I just couldn't figure that part out. Also, the reasoning behind the attack just left me feeling "meh".

I was interested in the synopsis at first as it gave me Murder on the Orient Express vibes. The story is about Agatha's gifted trip via train from her husband and to use the travel time to write her next bestseller. The murder itself and the progress of plot however was not enticing at all and felt dragged out, I personally had a difficult time completing it as I was no longer interested in finding out who was the killer. The revelations throughout the book also failed to capture my interest and I had a hard time understanding the relevance to the overall story.

A wonderful mystery that kept me guessing til the end. Good characters and easy to route for or against them.

I wanted to love this one, unfortunately, I didn’t.

It was a fun read, but it was too long. I tend to get confused, annoyed, bothered by too many storylines going on and that definitely happened here. The plot was good, but the ending fell flat for me.

While this one wasn’t for me, it won’t deter me from reading the author in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

I love a good snowed-in and/or stuck-on-a-train murder mystery, though this one leaned into the thriller genre. The ‘mystery writer turned sleuth’ trope is an oldie but goodie, and the fact that our protagonist was potentially the killer’s target gives her an excellent reason to stick her nose in. The cast is a varied mish-mash of personalities who are all very committed to their own agendas and priorities.

This is a genre-savvy love letter to murder mysteries somewhat reminiscent of <i> The Woman in the Library </i> by Sulari Gentill. I liked it a lot better than the last Eva Jurzyck book I read, which was much slower paced. The isolation of this setting—a train trapped in a blizzard—helps to up the anxiety of every character involved, and force these strangers to become intimately acquainted as they come to suspect a killer rides amongst them.

I would recommend this book to mystery/thriller fans moreso than to cozy mystery lovers.

I received a copy for review. All opinions are my own. Wow I had no idea this book would end up being so hard to put down. I was constantly guessing what would happen next. I felt thrills and chills the whole way through. It was easy to envision everything playing out with such a great description of the characters and scene. Such a great plot!

Passengers on the train from Toronto to Montreal are in for a few surprises. A six hour ride turns into a longer nightmare when the train gets stuck in the snow. There’s a dead body and many suspicious passengers. A surprise twist at the end.

The plot is interesting. A train ride with no wifi or connectivity from the outside world and raging storm outside. It was a very slow paced read with strange circumstances and more inner musings of Agatha than the story itself. I couldn't connect with her at all throughout the book. I couldn't differentiate between reality or her imaginations. I just kept reading to understand the story but the ending is completely absurd. I think this book wasnot for me. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC.

This story was just...okay. It is interesting that it is based on something an actual write does...ride trains to write...I am not quite sure I believed the ending. But it was an interesting concept and idea. Although being stuck on train isn't anything new. It might have been a little slow in some parts, but not a throw away book at all.

This book was high paced and worth every minute. I gave it 5 stars. It had me hooked from the start!