The Guilty One is a mind-churning psychological crime thriller that plays as much with your emotions as it does with your head as Bill Schweigart takes you through a razor-sharp balance between reality and insanity.
Cal Farrell is a sort of celebrity in Alexandria when he is hailed by the public as the hero cop who stopped and gunned down an active shooter. Cal wishes he could relish in this celebration but he can’t seem to remember what exactly happened in those scary moments. As he works with a psychologist to tap into his memories, he comes across a vicious killer whose body count keeps ramping up in his city. With patterns and clues that draw Cal in closer in his hunt for the killer, things begin to add up and not in his favor. The narrative becomes a dangerous and unhinged game of cat and mouse but it’s not clear if Cal is the hunter or the hunted and it all comes down to what he cannot remember.
Bill Schweigart sparks a relatable protagonist in Cal Farrell. As a protagonist, he embodies the best qualities we would seek in ourselves; brave in the face of danger, committed to being a better person despite the darkness he has seen, and a smooth player. However, the narrative is a rather sinister one at that as Schweigart weaves through parallel lines of storytelling, both focused intimately on Cal, and keeps readers hesitant of who Cal truly is. The crime solving aspect tugs at all fans of realistic and gritty thrillers but there is an added nuance of psychological that beckons you to be circumspect of Cal. Avoiding the careless mishap of giving away the punchline too soon, Schweigart keeps the suspicions bouncing around different characters, giving us a taste of the unfiltered paranoia Cal feels when he can't even trust himself to be truly good.
The Guilty One is uninhibited in its dangerous thrills and kickass action that channels the raw power of hard-hitting action sequences of Jack Reacher books. It is truly an immersive experience as we get onboard this adventure with Cal Farrell and shoot across the pages with our predictions, wary of the dangers that may befall the protagonist not only from others but from himself. The Guilty One represents the best kind of thrillers, the ones that leave you fulfilled and enriched both as thriller fans and as general readers.
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