Guess Again

Guess Again (2025) is a psychological thriller by Charlie Donlea. After 10 years working as an investigator of crimes against children, Ethan Hall retires to become an emergency room physician. However, when his former partner, Pete Kramer, comes to him with a 10-year-old case of a missing girl, Ethan is pulled back into investigation. As he unravels the pieces of the mystery, they connect to a man who has been in prison for over 30 years for killing Ethan’s father. Through Ethan’s investigation, Donlea explores themes of The Interplay Between Closure and Justice, The Lasting Impact of Trauma, and Appearance Versus Reality.

This guide uses the first hardcover edition, published in 2025 by Kensington Books Publishing.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of sexual violence, rape, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child death, death by suicide, substance use, graphic violence, sexual content, cursing, pregnancy termination, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

Ethan Hall is a retired criminal investigator who now works as a physician. In his 10 years with the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI), he never failed to solve a case. However, he is still haunted by his father Henry’s death. Henry was killed by Francis, a murderer who left the bodies of several women on the shores of Lake Michigan, tattooed with a black heart. His last victim, Maddie, managed to escape. After meeting Maddie at a parole hearing for Francis two years before, Ethan and Maddie began a romantic relationship. Now, Ethan attends another parole hearing, successfully securing several more years in prison for Francis.

Ethan works his last shift at the hospital before his week off. He meets Christian, a retired tech mogul who sold his company for billions of dollars and moved to Lake Okoboji. He then goes with Maddie to Lake Morikawa, where his family owns a cabin. He meets with his friend Kai, and the two go fishing, hoping to forget about the parole hearing.

When Ethan returns to work a week later, his old investigative partner, Pete, visits him. Pete invites him to meet with Governor Jones, who is reopening the case into his daughter Callie’s disappearance 10 years earlier. At the urging of Pete and Governor Jones, Ethan agrees to lead the case.

Meanwhile, an unnamed woman takes the identity of Eugenia, a woman who has obsessed over Francis, who is in prison because of his crimes. This woman locks Eugenia in her basement and then uses her identification to visit Francis. Francis gives her several instructions. She goes to an abandoned stockyard, where she finds photographs and tapes related to the Lake Michigan murders. She rents a storage unit and leaves them, along with a folder, for Ethan to find.

When Ethan visits Francis in prison, something he does every six months, he is shocked that Francis knows that he is no longer an investigator and that Callie’s case has been reopened. Francis mentions having knowledge of Callie, goading Ethan to come back, and tells him to go to the warehouse in the stockyard. There, Ethan finds a disposable phone.

As Ethan reviews Callie’s file, he learns that she was last seen at The Crest, a restaurant on an island in Lake Okoboji. She repeatedly texted and called an unknown number that the police were never able to identify. Ethan visits Christian for help with recovering the messages. Christian triangulates one of Callie’s calls and discovers it came from an address in Chicago.

Ethan goes to Chicago and discovers that the address is for a Planned Parenthood. Although there is no record of Callie’s visit, the nurse remembers her. Callie planned to have an abortion but returned the next day to tell the nurse that she was keeping the baby.

Ethan talks with Callie’s friend from childhood, Lindsay, who now runs a successful mental health company that offers anonymous telehealth. She was with Callie the night of her disappearance, but Callie left after she received a text message. Ethan assumes that Callie was going to see her child’s father.

Unsure where to go next, Ethan returns to Francis, who sends him back to the warehouse. There, Ethan finds a photograph of a woman who was recently kidnapped, Portia, alive and handcuffed in a basement. Francis insists that Callie is dead, but Portia can still be saved.

Christian recovers Callie’s text messages, and Ethan learns that she was texting with her volleyball coach, Blake Cordis. Ethan visits Blake. He admits to knowing about Callie’s pregnancy and to being the child’s father, but he is also adamant that he wanted Callie to keep the baby. He tells Ethan that he did not even have the disposable phone the day that Callie disappeared—he lost it the day before. Ethan believes that Blake is telling the truth.

Ethan visits Francis and agrees to his terms: Francis wants to be transferred out of solitary confinement and into a different prison. Ethan meets with Governor Jones, and they agree to let Francis transfer after he has a psychological evaluation.

The woman who took Eugenia’s identity continues to work for Francis. She travels to the southern border and mails the storage unit key to Ethan but ensures that it won’t arrive for another week. She then kills the woman she has tied up in the basement, who the novel implies is Portia. She changes her hair and eye color back to normal and prepares to intercept Francis’s transfer van.

One of Lindsay’s anonymous patients asks for help dealing with their guilt over killing Callie. She gives the video to Ethan, who takes it to Christian to find its source. It initially leads them to Blake, but Christian reveals that this was a ruse to make Blake look responsible. In reality, Lindsay created the message herself.

It is revealed that Lindsay has orchestrated events to try to pin Callie’s murder on Blake. She had a relationship with him when she was in high school, but Blake stopped seeing her so that he could be with Callie. She created the fake tape of Blake’s confession to her, planted the murder weapon in Blake’s home, and left his cigarettes in the home where she kept Portia, whom she kidnapped. In reality, Lindsay messaged Callie from Blake’s phone, leading her to the dock where Lindsay killed her out of her jealousy over Blake.

At the same time, Francis is transferred from prison. The fake Eugenia, who is revealed to be a woman named Harriett Alshon, intercepts the van and frees Francis. The woman she killed in the basement was the real Eugenia, a discovery that the police make at the same time that she is freeing Francis. She started a relationship with Francis years ago and took Eugenia’s identity to keep her own a secret. Everything she did in the novel—visiting Francis, buying a gun to kill the men transporting Francis, and renting the storage unit—will all tie back to Eugenia, who is now dead. As a result, she and Francis will be free.

After escaping the transport van, Francis goes to Lindsay’s house. He kills her as revenge for trying to use him to punish Blake. They were working together to get Francis’s transport, but Francis went behind her back and used Harriett instead. Just after Lindsay dies, Ethan arrives to arrest her and finds her body.

Realizing that Francis escaped, Ethan and Maddie go to Lake Morikawa to hide until Francis is found. However, after Ethan goes for supplies, Harriett and Francis arrive and tie Maddie up. Ethan arrives to free her, but he is shot in the process. Maddie kills Harriett, but Francis flees out the door and into the river. After several minutes of struggle, Francis is washed into Lake Morikawa. After days of searching, his body is never found.

A few days later, Ethan receives the letter with the storage unit key inside. In the unit, he finds all the pictures and videos from the Lake Michigan murders. However, he sees his father in the photos alongside Francis. A letter from Francis reveals that he and Ethan’s father were working together. After Maddie escaped, Ethan’s father wanted to go to the police, but Francis killed him to stop him.

A year later, Ethan still struggles with the information about his father. He locked up the storage unit and never told anyone. He repeatedly listens to the recording of his father’s final moments and struggles to understand his father’s role in the murders. He quits his job at the hospital and goes to Lake Morikawa, where he spends his days drinking.

Governor Jones and Maddie come to visit Ethan and show him a news article about a woman who was killed. Next to her body is a message from Francis, goading Ethan to hunt him down. Although Ethan hesitates, Maddie assures him that they will find Francis together and finally put an end to everything. He considers how many women are going to die because of Francis, and in the end, he agrees to lead the investigation.