'It's not the patients you should worry about. It's the staff you should watch out for.' Ship of Fools comprises twenty short stories, one for each year the author worked in the mental health system. These stories are fiction, but they are based on the real world of psychiatry and maximum security institutions. Written from the point of view of a staff member, these stories lift the lid on psychiatry, that secret domain. These are vivid accounts of life and death, of betrayal and redemption. 'They had drawn low cards in the lottery of life to get mental illness in the first place and then they had us to deal with on top of that.'