Guess Again

 My third Charlie Donlea book in such a short time, and I expect there will be more, was Guess Again. Ten years ago, 17-year-old Callie Jones went missing. About to start her senior year of high school, she was going to be the valedictorian, was a star athlete, and was beautiful. At an end of the summer high school party, she was missing and no trace of her was ever found.

The great rogue detective Ethan Hall was so disturbed by the case that he opted out of law enforcement, went to medical school, and at a later than normal age, became a successful ER doctor. Ten years later, Hall’s detective partner was about to retire. Although the Jones case was cold, this detective had unsuccessfully continued to look for clues, and he begged Hall to come back and have another look. It turns out that Callie’s dad was the man who was about to become the governor, and he offered Hall the chance to cancel all of his med school debts if he would take leave from the hospital to do so. In love withh is work as a doctor, Hall was reluctant to do so, but the financial incentive was one he could not pass up. Hall’s hospital administrator was not happy about Hall’s agreement to do so. The governor placed Hall back on the case as a special hire.

 

Hall did not know he was about to encounter a serial killer and the killer’s psychopathic girlfriend. That’s when the story really took off. I won’t be a spoiler, just add this book to your reading queue.

Those Empty Eyes

 Those Empty Eyes was my second Charlie Donlea murder mystery novel. He has quickly moved up to my list of favorite authors, along with Michael Connelly, Daniel Silva, Louise Penny, Robert Crais, and C.J. Box. If he had a more substantial body of work already produced, I might include Grant Rosenberg in this list, but he’s just published one three-book series about a unique character, Gideon. I raved about Donlea’s The Girl Who Was Taken, and Those Empty Eyes was the next one in audiobook form that I could get on Libby. 

The story starts with the horrendous murders of a husband, wife, and son, leaving only the 17-year-old daughter who had miraculously escaped the massacre. The killer fled and the girl emerged from her hiding spot only to find her dead family members. To protect herself in case he came back, she picked up the shotgun the killer had discarded. When the police arrived, Alexandra Quinlin was sitting on the floor with the shotgun in her lap, covered with blood, and uncontrollably sobbing.

 

The police mistakenly identified Alexandra as the killer even though the murder scene did not fully support that scenario. She had just finished her junior year of high school, and the police whisked her away to a juvenile detention facility where she spent the next two months. It was then that a pro bono attorney got her charges dismissed. But, the case of her family’s murder was never solved. Devastated by this turn of events, the lawyer and his wife took Alexandra into their home and they became her guardians, her surrogate parents. That was when the story got even more interesting.

 

The lawyer filed a wrongful arrest case against the city, and he won a multimillion dollar suit on her behalf. However, there were people in and out of the police department who did not accept this outcome and clung to the belief that she really was the murderer. She was pursued by a local reporter who began to make a career for herself based on her false belief of Alexandra’s guilt. Meanwhile, Alexandra was reeling from this series of events and she found it impossible to go back to school. Having been a beautiful girl who was both a brilliant student and athlete who was headed for a great life, she was suddenly depressed, unable to concentrate, and at a loss of her direction in life. She changed her name, moved to England, but was still unable to get her life organized. She was involved in drugs and other meaningless activities. Finally, the lawyer offered her a job to come back to the U.S. and to work for him as an investigator.

 

Alex turned out to be very good at her new direction, but after 10 years, she was assigned to a case which was rather similar to her own. That’s when this already gripping story became even more so. Enough said. I won’t be a spoiler for these good stories and great plot.

The Amalfi Secret

 

Admittedly, I found it difficult to review this book without commenting about my own strong feelings about the main content, but I’ll try to do just that. This was a Dan Brown-like novel, a murder mystery which took place in Italy and involved symbols of the Freemasonry. Although ChatGPT suggests the roots of the Freemasons dates to the medieval stonemasons’ guilds, the authors essentially trace it to the time of Christ. In essence, the book suggests that Freemasons had a long history of secretly trying to undermine and sabotage the Catholic church, all of Christianity, and the Muslim faith as well. Freemasonry was not a religion, but its members were  required to believe in a supreme being, the form of which was left to individual belief.

 

The authors Reinekings wrote that there are 33 levels of Freemasonry which members advance through, and as they advance, the members gradually learn about the true meaning of their symbols. While the masons openly supported brotherly love, charity, and truth, it was only the members at the highest ranking who knew what the symbology was really about, and their intentions were hardly charitable or noble. Secretly, the society had been supporters of both Hitler and Stalin.

 

Given the current decline of Christianity over the last many decades, it was the decision of those of highest ranking in Freemasonry to give up their centuries-old long game for a more daring big play. Their idea was to steal a nuclear weapon from the poorly secured soviet arsenal, to explode it in an American city and to blame the whole matter on the Muslims. By so doing, the masons thought they would hasten the end of all organized religions.

 

The Reinekings have produced a good storyline with a well-disguised plot. The main characters are both believable and compelling. I will leave other readers to comment further.