Bestselling author Robert Dugoni returns with an emotionally arresting follow-up to The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell.

In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his final summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the lessons of that summer — Vincent’s last taste of innocence and first taste of real life — dramatically unfold in a novel about breaking away, shaping a life, and seeking one’s own destiny.

'The World Played Chess is a masterwork of emotion from an author who seems like he hasn’t met a genre he can’t conquer. Rich with historical detail and as poignant and powerful as the best works of fiction, this novel is a gut-punch of a story that is as fearless as it is insightful.' — Bookreporter