Charlie Donlea delivered a hard-to-put-down thriller in his 2025 book Guess Again. Here, we meet former detective Ethan Hall, who left law enforcement after more than ten years in the child crimes division. Feeling the work had destroyed his capacity to witness human cruelty without losing himself, Ethan went to medical school and became a physician. His transition from one career to another focused on saving lives instead of documenting their destruction. When his dying former law enforcement partner requests his help with a ten-year-old cold case, Ethan discovers that fully escaping from your past isn’t always as easy as it looks on paper.
The case centers on Callie Jones, a seventeen-year-old volleyball star who vanished from a lake party in her small Wisconsin community. Her father, the newly elected state governor, has used his position to reopen the investigation on the tenth anniversary of her disappearance. When the governor hears that Ethan had a 100% solve rate during his tenure in law enforcement, he persuades him to lead the new investigation. The way Ethan is brought into the case, the people he needs to consult, and the challenges he faces in finding new information lead him down a winding path through territory he would prefer not to revisit. The convergence of Ethan’s personal traumas with his professional expertise creates the novel’s central tension.
The investigation requires Ethan to consult with Francis Bernard, a serial killer imprisoned for murdering Ethan’s police officer father more than thirty years earlier. This consultation represents the most difficult aspect of reopening the case. Francis possesses information that may be vital to finding Callie, creating an impossible situation where Ethan must engage with the man who destroyed his family. Francis’s mental manipulation reaches beyond the prison walls through his devoted follower, Eugenia Morgan. Her obsessive attraction to the killer transforms her into his instrument on the outside, introducing layers of danger to an already complex investigation.
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The narrative structure alternates between multiple timelines and character perspectives. Chapters devoted to a woman held captive in a basement interweave with scenes from Callie’s final days and Ethan’s present-day investigation. This fragmented approach keeps you mentally pinning post-it notes to a whiteboard of clues, hoping to make sense of them later. There are many separate threads to connect, which keep the pages turning quickly.
Donlea also plants evidence throughout the narrative, allowing careful readers to construct theories ahead of the reveals. I went back to find details a few times. The author demonstrates skill in misdirection, offering information that seems to mesh before revealing alternate possibilities.
Guess Again succeeds as both a cold case investigation and an examination of how trauma from past cases haunts those who investigate them. Donlea moves the story forward at a pace that builds momentum without sacrificing depth. Readers who appreciate thrillers, including the psychology of both investigators and criminals, will find this book delivers on all fronts. The characters feel authentic and their motivations are credible. Donlea has clearly set the stage for future installments, and based on the strength of Guess Again, Ethan Hall’s next case can’t come soon enough.
