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As a psychiatrist, I often struggled with competing ethical and legal responsibilities. In the course of providing treatment, I was expected to keep whatever my patients told me strictly confidential. At the same time, I was entrusted with preventing harm. Balancing the duty to maintain confidentiality with the duty to prevent harm and walking the often fine line between them caused me many a sleepless night. And the severity of the dilemma was directly related to the magnitude of potential harm that I envisioned.
The seeds of Shared Madness arose out of this ever present burden and the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. What if, I imagined, a patient were to share with me information about a possible future terrorist attack? And what if this information was shrouded in sufficient doubt that the consequences of withholding it weren’t clear or compelling? Would the potential magnitude of an unlikely event be enough to breach the confidence of a patient and perhaps even put that patient in legal or physical jeopardy?
I framed my story against a backdrop of a psychotic patient who heard voices and experienced delusions of persecution that altered his perception of reality. What might a psychiatrist believe about a tale of treachery told by someone with such an unreliable and distorted view of his world? And it occurred to me that if the doctor was also hallucinating and delusional, assessing the validity of the threat would become even more daunting.
Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite
Shared Madness by Rick Moskovitz is a gripping story filled with suspense and mystery, following Zack Tripler, a psychiatrist in Boston who has just admitted Youssef al Saud to the hospital. Brought in from the woods where he has been hiding with his laptop, Youssef claims to hear voices and has also discovered coded messages on his laptop. He believes there is a terrorist plot and that the bad guys are out to get him. Tripler doesn’t believe him until Youssef dies under mysterious circumstances. The psychiatrist gets closer to his patient’s widow, Jamilah, but he is torn between compassion for and suspicion of her. When he begins to have the same symptoms as his patient, he knows it is only a matter of time before he breaks psychologically. Can he solve the mystery and how involved is the widow?
Rick Moskovitz has created a well-plotted story that pulled me in from the very beginning. The dialogues are skillfully written and I enjoyed the way the anxiety of Youssef is captured in the story, thanks to the brilliant dialogue. The biggest twist is when the psychiatrist begins to have symptoms of psychosis. The pacing is good, the prose excellent, and the character arcs are impeccably achieved. This novel will appeal to readers who enjoy psychological thrillers with memorable characters and strong plot points. It is a page-turning story that had me racing from chapter to chapter.
I listened to Shared Madness in its entirety with few coffee breaks. This is because of two reasons: I loved the clear and powerful voice of Joe Smith and his ability to communicate the drama and the points of view. I also loved the plot and how the narrator captured the pacing through the professional audio recording. I can say confidently that any listener will have the same experience they would have if they read the physical book — a thoroughly satisfying one.
