"A laudable mystery that starts tangled and slowly unravels—with not one but two twists at the end."
— Kirkus Book Reviews
Cinematic Book Trailer for Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight
“Highly recommended not just for thriller readers; but any who wanted One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to take the next step.”
Midwest Book Review
THE SCHIZO SERIES
Pre-order Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight, the first book in Ilene B. Benator's new medical thriller saga, The Schizo Series.
THE SCHIZO SERIES
Pre-order Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight, the first book in Ilene B. Benator's new medical thriller saga, The Schizo Series.
“...a suspenseful and thrilling story that will keep readers
on the edge of their seats from the beginning to the end.”
Readers' Favorite
BOOK ONE
Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight
An ambitious med student's schizophrenic patient has bizarre ramblings about patients in trouble all around Chicago. He investigates and discovers that those delusions were actually real; but his pursuit of the truth sets off red flags, which get him framed for murder. To avoid prison and buy time, he pretends to be crazy and ends up in the same psych facility where he was a patient. While there, he uses his lucid moments to plan his escape and figure out a way to get his life back.
Schizo takes readers on a wildly unexpected journey into the what-ifs of medical science. Written by an Emergency Physician, Ilene B. Benator crafts situations that are terrifying, yet all too believable.
"Ilene B. Benator cleverly mixes the clinical disciplines of medicine and psychology with the gripping emotional torture of schizophrenia."
— Barry Abrams,
TV Producer & Audiobook Narrator
"An exciting thriller that takes me back to the difficult days of medical school, and reminds me of how fine the line is between our patients and ourselves."
— Dr. Sharon Frankel,
Emergency Physician
BOOK PREVIEW
Read the first chapter of the new medical thriller by Ilene B. Benator, Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight.
BOOK PREVIEW
Read the first chapter of the new medical thriller by Ilene B. Benator, Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight.
Schizo: Hidden in Plain Sight
— Chapter One —
I have had a long time to think about my predicament. Not continuously, though, because they don’t allow me long moments of clarity. It is such a strange feeling. All of my life I’ve been pretty anal about making the right decisions. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it, actually. Now I have no choice. No freedom.
And to think I used to stress out about stupid things like the MCAT and Gross Anatomy. Every single move I made back then was a deliberate action. As a second year medical student, I was obsessed with configuring my schedule so as to optimize my third-year medical school experience. I needed to garner stellar evaluations to obtain a choice ENT residency.
The third-year clinicals were the most important. But I had a plan, as always. Start off easy in psychiatry, learn procedures in ER, gain knowledge and confidence with peds and internal medicine, then kick ass on the surgical rotation. As someone with a college degree in both biology and psychology, I thought I was amply prepared for my first clinical rotation in psychiatry.
I was wrong.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to face at the Northwest Indiana Psychiatric Institution. No one, including myself, would ever have predicted that my perfectly planned life could have gone so far off track. And certainly, no one would have guessed I’d end up as a permanent resident of the very same forensic psychiatry unit that I studied at just one year ago. But here I sit, shut away; my cries for help unanswered. Meanwhile, those responsible for my fate roam free.