The Madman's Tale - Hardcover

Katzenbach, John

4.01

12,760 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593052056 ISBN 13: 9780593052051

Publisher: Bantam Press, 2004

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When the body of a young female trainee is found horribly murdered in the Nurses's station of 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 writes he is visited by hallucinations, by the increasing anxiety at his loosening grip on reality. As he goes deeper and deeper into his story about those events, 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 - 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...

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Review:

"'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)

Book Description:

A mesmerizing classic of a thriller: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE meets ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.

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