Duncan MacLeod

How long does it take a casual user to become a heroin addict? Not as long as you think. This fourth and final installment in the Psychotic Break Series sees Ethan struggling to rejoin society as drugs take center stage in his life. Home from Mexico with a shampoo bottle full of paregoric, Ethan drifts from job to job and house to house, unable to get his footing. The only thing that remains constant in his life is the relief heroin provides. The drug takes hold in tiny steps. He doesn't become a junkie overnight; he knows he is playing with fire. The novel showcases San Francisco at the end of the 1980's. It was a period of upheavals everywhere - the Berlin Wall fell; San Francisco shook, and Microsoft took over the world. It was the last days of analog, when phone booths were more common than cell phones, snail mail and typewriters were still favored over word processors. A Quarter describes a San Francisco that vanished.

In this third installment, Ethan escapes the confines of the Mental Health system on his journey to Mexico. Along the way, he encounters shaman, witches, martial artists and one dashingly handsome psychic rich kid with a penchant for causing trouble. Each encounter changes the picaresque Ethan as he winds his way deep into the heart of this magical nation.

Continuing right where "5150: A Transfer" left off, "Half" recounts the ongoing saga of Ethan Lloyd and his bid to break free of the mental health system while continuing the slow healing process. Ethan befriends Michael G. Page, a complex character suffering from a much milder case of mental illness. Michael helps Ethan regain his sense of self and personal freedom that he lost in the hospital. Half takes place in a very real location - Conard House, a Victorian Mansion in Pacific Heights converted into a halfway house for mental patients. The house, perched high atop the hill above Cow Hollow, provides an ironic contrast to the fate of the clients who live there. For many, this will be the only mansion they will ever call home. There are setbacks. Ethan suffers from occasional relapses of paranoia, hallucinations and medical mismanagement. Despite these obstacles, he plans to escape to Mexico with his new crush, Chance.

I've been kidnapped by aliens dressed as cops. They moved me from their prison to a simulated hospital. I can leave any time, but they won't let me. If I don't escape, they'll keep me here forever. If I use the telephone, the phone company will sell my innermost secrets to the government. If I take the medicine they give me, my brain will be replaced with cotton. So yeah. I'm a few sandwiches short of a picnic.5150: A Transfer Is Duncan MacLeod's debut novel. Fast-paced, frenetic, and unapologetically blunt, the novel takes the hero through a bout with psychosis that lasts for several months, during which he is jailed and transfered (5150'ed) to the mental hospital, where he remains until his psychotic episode dies down. Likened to William Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar, the novel is a profound portrait of the ravages of mental illness told from the point of view of the person suffering.