Persona

by William J. Cook

A Fractured Mind. A Buried Past. A Killer Truth.

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THE STORY

About the book

Tropes

Race to Clear a Name

When psychiatrist Carter Lane inherits his best friend’s patients after a shocking suicide, he finds himself face-to-face with Arthur Frampton—a man with dissociative identity disorder whose presence dredges up memories of a decades-old massacre. But when Lane’s own wife is murdered in a chillingly similar fashion, suspicion turns inward. The police think Lane is the killer. He thinks the answer lies in Frampton’s fractured psyche.

To clear his name, Lane must navigate a web of false identities, buried trauma, and long-held grudges. But as his own past begins to unravel, Lane discovers a truth more terrifying than he ever imagined—one that could destroy him before justice is done.

Get your copy of Persona by William J. Cook and dive into a relentless psychological thriller that explores the darkest corners of identity—and how the past never truly dies.

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Read an excerpt

I’m having a lucid dream—the recurring one—aware that I’m sleeping soundly in my bedroom while my dreaming consciousness wanders about the house. Now I’m standing in front of a calendar that occupies my living room wall, each day printed in brilliant colors. As I watch, the pages slip off, one by one, and fall to the floor. September, August, July, June, disintegrate to ash. Then the pages begin to fall more and more rapidly. Whole years crumble to dust and flash before my eyes. 2020, 2011, 2000, 1995. The calendar stops at May 1993.

I step outside into the starless night. I’m walking down a dark, deserted street between rows of six- and seven-foot-tall Douglas firs—this year’s crop of Christmas trees—on one side of the road, and rows of grapevines on the other. There’s a house ahead of me. The lights are on, and the front door is open. A scream from inside pierces the silence. Then the whining roar of a machine. I run into a room where blood is splashed on the walls and pools on the floor. As always, the bodies are lying there. A man in blood-soaked clothing looms over them with a chainsaw stuttering in his hands. He’s howling like a wild animal. I can make out one word. “Frankie!” he shrieks. “Frankie! Come to Daddy!” I’m nauseous at the coppery smell of the blood and the acrid exhaust of the chainsaw.

Then all sound stops. He’s turned off the saw and collapses on the floor. A few moments later, he stands back up, and his blood-streaked face registers shock at the carnage around him. He reaches for the phone on the wall and calls the police. I slip by him and sneak upstairs to the guest bedroom. In a corner of the closet, behind the racks of hanging clothes, a little boy hunkers down, eyes wide in terror, shaking convulsively. And as always, I’m faced with the same choice: save the child or save myself?

“Stay there, Frankie,” I whisper. “Don’t leave the closet.” I turn and bolt downstairs and out of the house. Behind me, I hear police sirens approaching like a swarm of angry hornets.

It’s my alarm. I awake safe, in my own bed, the T-shirt I’m wearing soaked with perspiration. My knees wobble when I stand up, and my heart is pounding. After I use the bathroom, I stagger to the kitchen and start the coffee pot.

***

“Who am I?” asks my six-year-old son from his car seat in back. It’s a favorite memory of mine from two-and-a-half decades ago, and I recall it almost every morning on my drive to work. Mark never grew tired of this game, and we played it on the way to Addison Lord Academy, a private elementary school with a price tag that challenged the tuition of the local university.

“Are you a famous psychiatrist?” was the standard question I’d ask.

“Yes, Daddy,” he’d say with a smirk.

“Are you Carl Jung?” He was always Carl Jung. I think he liked the way the name felt in his mouth and rolled off his tongue ever since I first taught him to say it. Of course, he also liked the fact that nobody in his class at school had ever heard of the man.

Editorial Reviews

I wanted to reach out after learning about Persona to tell you how gripping and intelligently constructed this psychological thriller is... Carter Lane is a compelling protagonist because he's so vulnerable...As Lane becomes a man on the run, the novel sharpens into something more than a thriller; it becomes an examination of how easily identity fractures under guilt, grief, and fear...I'm a fellow author who deeply appreciates psychological thrillers that respect both the intelligence and emotional endurance of the reader. Persona is relentless without being hollow, dark without being exploitative, and thoughtful without losing momentum. Congratulations on writing a novel that proves the past doesn't need to be supernatural to be terrifying, it only needs to be buried.

— William Miller, best-selling author of the Jake Noble Military Thriller Series

Great thrillers do one thing better than mediocre ones: they never carelessly reveal answers but instead take readers through a series of scenarios with whiplash turns and twists that keep them guessing until the very end. Cook is skilled at doing just that. He creates well-rounded characters who drive the narrative through believable dialogue...Cook takes the best elements of the psychological thriller and weaves an exciting, intriguing tale. This one will have readers eagerly turning the pages to discover who or what is the real boogeyman in the story. The answer may surprise them.

— Kat Kennedy, The US Review of Books

William J. Cook is as skilled at depicting psychological trauma and the peculiar traits of the dissociative personality as he is in building the exquisite tension of a murder mystery that delves deeply into questions of operating on the wrong side of the law and building a case that has too many loopholes...The personal insights that permeate this story sizzle with reflective force, creating a satisfying 'you are here' feel connecting readers with the puzzles and events that unfold...Its intrigue...translates to engrossing reading that successfully marries the action of a thriller with the psychological revelations of a story nicely steeped in twists, turns, and unexpected revelations.

— Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

A haunting, intelligent, slow-burning thriller that explores memory, trauma, and identity...The story repeatedly asks whether the authority of psychiatric knowledge truly grants mastery over the mind, or whether the self is always more unstable than reason would prefer to admit. Cook's precise prose mirrors the language of psychiatry while probing deeper questions of identity. The title Persona--from the Latin for theatrical mask--reflects the novel's central theme: the self we show the world often conceals more than it reveals. The novel utimately succeeds both as a thriller and a meditation on responsibility, identity, and the uneasy boundaries of the human mind.

— The Prairies Book Review

The twisty plot, especially the unexpected surprises towards the end, recontextualizes earlier events, challenging my perception of trust and sanity. Persona is a gripping, profound examination of how past sins constantly haunt the present, asking whether true forgiveness is possible after emotional, unspeakable loss and if one can ever truly escape the shadow of their own former self. The narrative voice, delivered in the first person, is captivating; the prose has its own magic; and the sparkling dialogue fuels the drama that builds through each page.

— Krishna Blackwood, The Book Commentary

William J. Cook