At the risk of sounding repetitive, I still cannot fathom why Charlie Donlea is not a household name. With the release of his latest novel, GUESS AGAIN, Donlea once again proves that he is one of the best psychological thriller authors working today.

The book opens with a quote from Heywood Broun that will make you stop and think: “The tragedy of life is not that man loses but that he almost wins.” Ethan Hall retired from his job as a detective with a 100% success rate and is now an ER doctor. He simply could not deal with the cases that involved crimes against children. The last person he expects to see is his former partner, Pete Kramer. He comes to inform Ethan that he is dying and to ask that he solve a cold case that still haunts his dreams.

"GUESS AGAIN is a masterfully plotted thriller with terrific characters and a sense of justice that Donlea always seems to deliver in each of his novels."

When 17-year-old high school volleyball star Callie Jones disappeared a decade earlier, the entire community was rattled. None more so than her father, Mark, who is now Wisconsin’s governor and the man behind Pete’s request. Ethan agrees to work on the file outside of his ER hours, and everyone is satisfied that he is the best person to find some answers.

Ethan is dealing with his own demons in the form of inmate Francis Bernard, who murdered his police officer father when Ethan was only 13. He is always present whenever there is a parole board hearing to ensure that everyone remembers what Francis did, but also to convey that Francis may have been a serial killer with several female victims.

In flashback scenes, we see that Callie is having an affair with her 21-year-old volleyball coach. She walks away from an abortion clinic in Chicago as she is carrying his child and decides to keep the baby.

News that Ethan has taken on the Callie Jones case somehow reaches Francis, who asks to see him. During their tense confrontation, which bears many similarities to the infamous meeting of Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Francis claims to know what happened to Callie and where she is. He also confesses to knowing the whereabouts of another young lady who went missing a month earlier and wishes to bargain for a transfer to a better prison in exchange for his assistance.

Of course, Ethan will do whatever it takes to get justice for these victims, but Francis is not to be trusted. One surprise follows another in rapid succession to the point where readers will be left reeling before the dust settles. GUESS AGAIN is a masterfully plotted thriller with terrific characters and a sense of justice that Donlea always seems to deliver in each of his novels.