Delusion: A Mystery

Forensic neuropsychologist at Boston's prestigious Pearce Psychiatric Center and expert defense witness Peter Zak regularly testifies at murder trials on issues like a defendant's conception of right and wrong or the reliability of a witness's memory. This time a lawyer calls Peter to the scene of a crime-Nick Babikian has just found his wife brutally stabbed and floating in their backyard pool. The lawyer wants Peter to assess Nick's state of mind. A brilliant but paranoid man who's made millions inventing and marketing his own computer role-playing game, he was working in the house while his wife was stabbed, and he's certain to be accused of wielding the knife.

Nick claims his innocence, but he has no proof, though certainly some of what he claims seems true. For example, there are signs his wife was having an affair. And oddly, the longer they work together, the more Peter relates to Nick's feelings. For Peter himself becomes more and more convinced that his own wife's killer, a man who's supposed to be serving life in prison, is somehow tormenting him at home and at work.

It's up to Peter to separate fact from fiction in this chilling entry in a masterful series.

In the eerie pre-dawn mist, a backyard pool is transformed into a brutal bloodbath. The floating corpse was once the lady of the lavish suburban home. The only suspect is Nick Babikian, the victim's husband. Riddled by paranoia, Nick can provide no alibi and no potential witness other than his own mentally ill mother, whose tortured mind is permanently entrenched in her own violent past.

There's No Telling What's Fact Or Fiction...

As a forensic psychologist, Dr. Peter Zak is mired in overwhelming circumstantial evidence. Yet instinct-and experience-tell him there's more to the crime than meets the eye. Determined to unlock the secrets buried in Nick's twisted psyche, Peter gradually finds that the suspect's paranoia seems to be seeping into his own world. Either his imagination is feeding off his patient's delusion or somebody really is lurking in the shadows, watching his every move. Somebody who knows Peter's darkest secrets-and most crippling fears...