Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium

Robert Bloch's original Psycho novel was published in 1959 and became an instant success, followed by Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation a year later. Twenty-three years later, Bloch wrote a sequel revealing that Norman Bates had spent those decades in a mental institution before escaping and committing murders in Hollywood. This novel explores what happened during those two decades in the asylum. Set in 1960, Norman Bates is a catatonic patient at the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Dr. Felix Reed attempts to bring him out of his catatonic state, but faces obstacles from disturbed fellow patients and staff members who view the institution as a prison rather than a healing facility. The building itself, a former private sanitarium, carries rumors of being haunted. A complication arises when Robert Newman appears—Norman's twin brother, separated at birth after a doctor declared him brain damaged. As the brothers get to know each other, Norman detects a darkness in Robert that may exceed his own. Murders begin occurring within the institution's walls, leading to a series of shocking events that deepen the mystery of what truly happens inside Psycho: Sanitarium.