Delusions of Clarity: A Novel of Intrigue and Perception

Karl Jommers is a straight-shooting therapist committed to helping blue-collar men overcome their reluctance to seek counseling, a mission instilled in him after the suicide of his steelworker father.

After a cop is set up to be shot, Jommers must evaluate the two police officers involved. They both offer conflicting accounts, but neither is lying. Their divergent perspectives are blurred by their personal anxieties and politics. Where one sees acts of local corruption, the other envisions a government conspiracy that includes covert dispersion of anxiogenic chemicals.

Jommers methodically tries to disentangle the discordance, but is faced with a quandary. He can't square his patients' differing views without first discerning the truth of what happened. But stepping outside his domain to investigate may jeopardize his faltering practice and possibly his life.

As he labors to clear the angst-fogged lenses of others, he is forced to question the clarity of his own perception.

Vern Bryk is a writer in Cleveland, Ohio. He previously worked as a journalist and magazine editor.