Lisa Unger is the real deal. Although she now has 17 novels under her belt, it still feels like she's just getting started. The past few years have seen the awards and accolades pour in for her work. For readers like myself who have been there from the very beginning, we want to let out a collective “It’s about time!”

“For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?' (Kahlil Gibran, THE PROPHET). Unger kicks off THE STRANGER INSIDE with this quote, which pretty much sums up the moral issue at its center. Like many of her previous novels, the complex characters she has created here are not leading black-and-white lives but are curiously living in the gray area that lies somewhere in between. This book will push readers to question what the true definition of justice is and the fine line that it finds itself teetering on with other terms like revenge and retribution.

"Unger delves deeper into the human psyche than she possibly ever has gone before --- and that is saying something as she already is one of the best out there at depicting psychological terror and moral ambiguity in her characters."

One seemingly innocent day, 12-year-old Rain Winter and her best friends, Tess and Hank, find themselves trapped inside a monster's lair. The monster's name is Eugene Kreskey, and his captives work out a plan to escape his clutches. Rain is able to get away unharmed, but the other two are not so lucky. Hank survives, but is physically and mentally damaged for the rest of his life. Tess, sadly, does not escape the ordeal and pays for it with her young life.

Now, decades later, Rain is working as a successful journalist who is about to find the story of her life. She wakes up one morning to the news that a man named Steve Markham has been murdered. Markham was the lead suspect in the disappearance of his wife, Laney. He was somehow acquitted, but someone decided to take out what they felt was the justice he deserved by torturing and killing him.

While Rain sees this as the tip of the iceberg for a story that will make her temporarily famous, she also realizes that the attention she will draw to herself will cause something else to happen: the return of Hank (or Dr. Henry Reams, as he is now known) into her life --- the same Hank whose numerous letters she has hidden away, mostly unopened. Not only would her husband, Greg, be displeased, she is not sure how she would respond to Hank wanting to be back in her life. Especially when the revenge murders of suspected killers continue, making Hank the number one suspect in her eyes.

The narrative is driven forward by a handful of fleshed-out characters. We also get the perspective of the long-dead Tess, who Hank still sees and converses with the entire time he is battling his inner demons. Of course, the biggest irony of all is that he is a psychiatrist. With THE STRANGER INSIDE, Unger delves deeper into the human psyche than she possibly ever has gone before --- and that is saying something as she already is one of the best out there at depicting psychological terror and moral ambiguity in her characters.

Towards the end of the book, one of the characters thinks: Someone else was out there, delivering a certain brand of justice. The stranger inside took a sort of dark pleasure in the thought. I guarantee readers will revel in this very same brand of justice and recognize that Lisa Unger has been their personal tour guide into the dark side of the human condition.