The Madman's Tale - Tapa blanda

"'Wonderful. This haunting story will linger in your mind long after you've left the asylum'" (Miami Herald)

"'Beautifully written, thoroughly engrossing thriller'" (Boston Globe)

"'A novel that rises to the top of the genre, a page-turner whose authenticity takes the reader on an unexpected journey'" (Denver Post)

"'A tour de force, superior storytelling designed to scare your pants off and very likely to succeed'" (Washington Post)

When the body of a young female nurse is found horribly murdered in the Western State Mental Hospital, Massachusetts, there is apparently no shortage of suspects - a whole hospital of them. One inmate claims to have seen the killer who he will only describe as The Angel.

Twenty years later, Francis Petrel, once a patient at the hospital, writes his account of the events of the murder and its investigation on the walls of his tiny apartment. As he goes deeper and deeper into his story, he plunges further into the return of his own madness. He remembers how he is co-opted into the investigation by Lucy Jones, a driven young profiler who has her own reasons for pursuing this particular killer. But she, and Francis, face the same conundrum: how does one find a cold blooded killer masquerading as mad in a world populated by the deranged?

In the end it will come down to Francis for he is the only one of the investigating team capable of recognizing the essential lie that The Angel embodies: for though his acts are those of a mad man, he most emphatically is not...