Becky's Great Book Reviews Guess Again by Charlie Donlea

Charlie's Donlea's Guess Again takes readers on a breakneck cat and mouse chase throughout Wisconsin, from Milwaukee to the northern tip. An insidious plan, concocted by unhinged people with haunting connections to each other, unfolds in this well-told thrilling novel.

Ethan Hall is a former detective with the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation turned ER doctor. Burnt out by the barrage of grieving families inevitable in his line of work, Ethan left his law-enforcement job for a career in medicine.

However, Ethan finds himself going back to solving crimes when the Governor asks him to step in to help with the ten-year-old cold case disappearance of his daughter. Complicating things for Ethan is the involvement of an inmate named Francis Bernard, the man responsible for murdering Ethan's father in 1993. This is the same monster imprisoned for a string of murders of teenaged girls; one of whom is now Ethan's girlfriend who is the only victim to have gotten away.

Sound complicated? It is, but Charlie Donlea's clear, skillful writing paces the novel just right and makes the narrative flow with ease. From Hybristophilia to vengeful jealousy and twists galore, Guess Again packs a big plot punch.

A quote used between two of the book's characters chillingly foreshadows the overall theme of this book: "the tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins". And with Ethan promising Francis early in the novel that he would never let him walk free, Guess Again is all set up for a wonderful sequel! I give this book five stars out of five.