A BRIEF MADNESS: NEW IDENTITY

About the book

About A BRIEF MADNESS: NEW IDENTITY

A BRIEF MADNESS: NEW IDENTITY is a high-voltage psychological thriller that shines the light on social and racial injustice, vigilante violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and—more philosophically—the illusory nature of the self and how it impacts our attitudes toward good and evil. The time is the recent global recession, when government cutbacks have squeezed law enforcement’s power to protect and serve, and one family pays the price for it in blood. The setting encompasses the mean streets of South Providence, Rhode Island, the pristine coast and backwoods of Little Rhody’s South County, and the smallest state’s largest landfill. African-American botanist Agnes Hampton finds her pacifist nature challenged when her husband is murdered in their home and the lives of her daughter and grandchildren are threatened by a ruthless serial predator. When an opportunity arises to strike him down her maternal instincts trump her moral values, transforming her into “a defender—not a murderer.” Agnes must now reconcile her new identity and defeat an even shrewder nemesis—a disfigured opera-loving savant—quickly and quietly, or she herself may fall prey to the law, or risk becoming a victim in a murderous rampage. A BRIEF MADNESS: NEW IDENTITY shares elements with such best-sellers as The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (brilliant female protagonist pursues serial killer), Death Wish by Brian Garfield (vigilante justice), and A Time to Kill by John Grisham (racial bias, revenge); but it also fills a unique niche in the marketplace by questioning the assumption that higher consciousness and criminality are mutually exclusive, and by exploring the diverse locales and cultural quirkiness of Rhode Island, USA.

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