The cover of GIRL MOST LIKELY, the latest stand-alone from the prolific Max Allan Collins, declares the novel “A Thriller.” But it feels more like a classic murder mystery, enriched with small town rivalries and a sizeable group of suspects with similar motives.

Krista Larson, at 28-years old, has made her mark as the youngest female police chief of Galena, Illinois, a small but popular tourist town. But Krista is always quick to acknowledge that she learned from the best: her father, Keith, a decorated former police detective.

Now Krista’s 10-year high school approaches, and her former classmates gather at a lakefront lodge. Among them is Astrid Lund, voted “Girl Most Likely,” and now a popular TV news journalist in Chicago.

It doesn’t take long for old grudges and resentments to resurface. But then the reunion, and the otherwise idyllic town of Galena, is shaken by a brutal triple murder of Krista’s former classmates.

As patterns of the murders emerge, Krista, with her father’s help, uncovers long-held secrets and scandals as they investigate the surviving classmates to discover the murderer.

Collins takes the elements of a traditional “locked room mystery” and alters them with a larger group of suspects and, of course, a much larger locked room. But like countless popular stories preceding it, most all the suspects express likely motives for the killings. It is up to Krista to narrow the suspects down and finally expose the murderer.

A third-person perspective mostly drives the plot. But Collins occasionally switches to a first-person point-of-view of the murdered and distinguishes it by having the killer speak to himself (“You are close enough from where you parked to get a decent look at her.”) This is slightly disorienting until you get fully immersed into the narrative flow.

As usual, Collins has a great eye for details and popular cultural references of his characters and locations. At times, however, his insistence upon every minute feature of an individual’s clothing gets tiring. We learn much more from the sound of a person’s voice or the expression on their face than we do from the color of their jacket, pants, and shoes.

But this is a minor annoyance as the tension builds and the suspects are thinned down. And readers will find themselves nodding with approval as painful memories of the suspect’s high school days match their own. So rather than quibble over terms – a “thriller” or a “murder mystery” – sit back and enjoy GIRL MOST LIKELY, the latest triumph from the justifiably lauded mind of Max Allan Collins. —Alan Cranis

Get it at Amazon.