We Are Monsters

August 1, 2015
A new patient arrives at the Sugar Hill mental asylum: Crosby Nelson, also known as the Apocalypse Killer, whose schizophrenia has kept him out of prison for his murders. Dr. Alex Drexler, a member of the asylum's medical staff, has been working on a new drug, one that, he believes, will cure patients with schizophrenia. He's done some human testing with tragically mixed results, and he's staked everything on one last trial. His subject: Crosby Nelson, a man who, it turns out, has been protected from his own inner demons by the very schizophrenia that Drexler is about to cure . . . and, in so doing, unleash a hellish nightmare no one could possibly have seen coming. This is a stark and frightening horror novel, and one admires the author for populating it with a cast of characters who are almost uniformly unlikable: the arrogant, egotistical Drexler; the weak Eli Alpert (Drexler's boss); most of the main supporting cast. Nelson, the despicable serial killer, actually comes off as one of the more sympathetic people in the book, until Drexler's meddling unleashes what's inside him. Horror fans should definitely seek this one out.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)