The Portrait by Charles Atkins

Painter Chad Green's most recent bout with manic depression leaves him glad to be released from the psych ward in time for the opening of his new show, but the horrors that await him almost make the locked ward look good in comparison. His apartment is ransacked, his dog shot, and his psychiatrist is murdered on the night of the show. At it, as it happens, a mysterious stranger buys Green's portrait of the psychiatrist and insists on immediately removing it. The show sells out, but Green can't celebrate. He is temporarily homeless and without other clothes, and his dog can't shake the effects of anesthesia. And Green isn't taking his meds. The lines between reality and psychosis blur for him, the voices in his head start up, and his illness blends with his sleuthing into the murder, threatening to drag him into a past that terrifies him.

cover variations