Power moves fastest when no one is watching—and even faster when someone is trying to stop it: FRANTIC a Psychological Thriller by Brent Bradley Book Tour with Guest Post and Author Q&A
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A prison patient’s dire warning initially seems routine to Dr. Brian Heiser—until one prophecy unfolds exactly as foretold. Alarmed, Brian confides in his childhood friend Dr. Fred Gonzalez, an unconventional forensic psychologist with an uncanny ability to read between the lines. Their search draws them into the shadows surrounding a Texas State AI Bill pushed by billionaire tech moguls and protected by operatives willing to kill to secure their advantage. Patricia Reigns, a gifted AI researcher—and a woman with a history that complicates Brian’s objectivity—adds expertise and emotional tension to their investigation. Together, they confront assassins fueled by unlimited money, a media landscape unwilling to look deeper, and political forces eager to protect their interests. What they discover in the end is far more explosive than they imagined.
Dr. Brent Bradley holds a PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy, an MA in Christian Theology, and a BA in English Literature. A tenured former university professor, he has spent nearly three decades working with couples in therapy while publishing journal articles, book chapters, and co-authored works on emotion and change in psychotherapy. Drawing from his deep understanding of human emotional experience, he brings an intimate psychological intensity to his writing. Before academia, he explored newspaper reporting—an early passion that sharpened his instinct for compelling narrative detail. Brent lives in Houston with his wife and their daughter; they also honor the memory of their twin lost in the womb. He enjoys working out, freshwater fishing, reading, cooking, good coffee, and cheering on the Astros, Texas A&M, the Texans, and the UFC. He is a follower of Christ. Visit Brent at his website and follow him on X.
Amazon: https://bit.ly/4o4bDEb
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/229219928-frantic
Excerpt
“Hi, my name is Brian Heiser.” Brian reached out his hand. “My two colleagues are Patricia Reigns and Fred Gonzalez. I believe you spoke with Patricia on the phone?”
“Yes,” the man replied. “I’m Paul Hessinger. Please come in.”
They entered his office to find a small suite composed of two offices, each decorated in a kind of 1970s look. The suite smelled faintly of smoke, but not heavily.
“Sorry for the cigarette smell,” he said. “I started stepping outside to smoke five years ago, but people say they can still smell it.”
“Might also be because of the furniture on loan from the set of The Rockford Files,” Fred chirped, looking around at the heavily dated decorum.
Brian and Patricia shot mean looks at him.
“Thank you for seeing us,” Patricia interjected, hoping to put Fred’s needless insult behind them. “Like I explained earlier, we’re interested in learning more about the AI bill from your perspective.”
“I am a retired philosophy and education professor,” he said. “From my view, it’s a very dangerous bill. I believe that Artificial Intelligence is going to do us all a tremendous amount of good. This bill is just too much, too soon.”
“That’s something we’re wondering about,” Patricia responded. “Why are they pushing this so hard, so fast?”
“Your detective friend with the attitude is the kind to figure that out,” Hessinger said. “I have my guesses, but I am not educated in that arena. Investigating is the media’s job, which means it won’t get investigated.”
Ever the detective, Fred noted Hessinger’s well-dated shoes. They looked fresh out of the “My Three Sons” tv show era. It was all he could do to not comment on them. Brian saw Fred looking down at those shoes. He could see him struggling not to insult the doctor. He quickly jumped in. “Fred. Easy.”
Brian looked over at Patricia for clearance. She nodded.
“Sir,” Brian said. “I don’t think I really understand the magnitude of the dangers of this bill. I know very little about AI. Can you put this in layman’s terms?”
“Have you tried Chatbot yet?”
“No sir. I don’t know what that is.”
The retired professor chuckled. “I could always tell my southern students on the first day of class because they used ‘Sir’ or ‘Ma’am.’ Some women colleagues took exception to it, but I think it’s a respectful part of the southern tradition.”
He looked at Brian and smiled. Fred rolled his eyes. Brian gets along with everyone.
“Anyway,” he continued. “A chatbot is an online AI application that talks with you. It mimics another human and answers your questions in real time. It’s pretty incredible. They’re getting better every day, too. Soon you won’t be able to tell it’s not another human.”
He crossed his legs and thought for a moment.
“But there’s a rub.” He leaned forward, looking at each one of them separately. “AI makes up facts. Out of thin air, it just makes things up and presents them as true! They call them ‘Hallucinations.’ They have no clue how or why they happen. And they don’t know yet how to stop them from happening.”
Hessinger took a sip of coffee from a quarter-filled mug that looked like it’d been sitting there for a week. Fred cringed, uncomfortable in his huge polyester-loving fossil of a recliner.
“Imagine the consequences of this with widespread use. Do you want a judge even partially relying on non-existent court rulings, ones that AI spat out as historical precedent, to send you to prison? What about to the hot seat to fry?”
“Let’s not go all Mr. Robot,” Fred spoke up.
“Really?” Hessinger responded. “Listen carefully to me.”
He lifted his arms and placed his palms in the air, facing them. “We already have documented cases in which AI has provided law firms with false case rulings. Lawyers presented six legal case rulings to support their written arguments in court. AI cited cases that weren’t real. They had never happened! AI misidentified. It named airlines that never existed. Luckily, a federal judge dug deep and caught it in time. He fined both the law firm and the lawyers.”
Patricia was well aware of AI hallucinations. She’d always been so fixated on throttling forward, ever forward, into what AI could do next, that she just never stopped to consider dangers. None of them did.
“There are already AI hallucinations given to surgeons.” Hessinger shook his head.
“Oh, sorry,” he said with sarcasm. “We shouldn’t have removed that much of your liver. But our God, God AI, told us that taking that percentage of your liver had the highest odds of long-term survival. Unfortunately, it made that up. Not sure why. It’s been an entire month since it last did that! Geez. So now you have to live the rest of your life hooked up to this filtration pump.”
“The ramifications of this are horrifying,” Patricia heard herself say out loud.
Guest Post
While Researching My Story, I Discovered…
There are some real cutthroat people in the AI business. These rich techies want to be first to market and to be the leader. I was shocked at how little I knew about the dangers of AI. These Large Language Models (LLM) rely on the ideas and data that is fed into them by these huge companies. It seems no one from the outside knows who these people are and exactly how they decide what goes into training the worldviews of these AI models though!
What values are they training these AI models to have? What do they want the future to look like? How are they programming the AI models to shape people? What views are they programmed to silence? We and our kids just go use them and mainly accept what they tell us. The secrecy in this disturbed me.
The top AI models will play an enormous role in shaping society on every subject one can imagine. Let’s face it, they’re already doing this. There seems to be no regulation being done outside of the companies themselves, who have billions of investment dollars at stake.
FRANTIC touches on some of the real possible dangers, and places them within the normal lives of a few common people. We learn about the dangers as the characters do in their daily lives. I think it’s very relatable, scary, and thought provoking. It proved a great canvas to create thrilling suspense and delve into how this affects relationships while discovering these AI dangers.
Author Q&A
Writing Process & Creativity
How did you research your book?
I did a lot of research! I went deep into AI magazine articles, online articles, and research articles. I also watched a lot of Youtube videos on AI, especially interviews with leading engineers in the field of AI.
What’s the hardest scene or character you wrote—and why?
The toughest scenes for me were the romantic ones from a female perspective. For me as a male, it’s not easy to authentically write what a female character is feeling when it comes to romance and attraction. However, I’ve done couples therapy for 25 years so I have a LOT to pull from!
Where do you get your ideas?
I tend to get ideas from areas that I am already interested in, and ones that I think others are too. They MUST provide a context for juicy relationship dynamics, which is my specialty. I let ideas simmer for quite a while before writing anything. Other ideas start flowing during these “simmer” times too. I do a lot of research, so ideas come from the research findings as well.
What sets your book apart from others in your genre?
I have a PhD in Psychology (Marriage and Family Therapy), so I think my depth of knowledge from that and from seeing over a thousand couples in therapy and supervision of other therapists really dials me in well for the psychological thriller genre.
As a professor I researched and published quite a lot on emotion and how it drives us as humans. This should come through in the book during intense scenes, as well as when characters have inner dialog, which I often use in my writing.
What’s your favorite compliment you’ve received as a writer?
That my writing is relatable and resonates with everyday blue collar people.
Your Writing Life
Do you write every day? What’s your schedule?
I try to write every weekday. I wake up, go to the gym, work out hard, come home, make coffee, read the bible and pray, then get to writing and researching.
Where do you write—home, coffee shop, train?
I mainly write from home. I have a desk and a couch. These days I use the couch the most. I block out all calls and interruptions. I usually need at least three hours to get anything done. Then I let that simmer. A lot of simmering…
Any quirky writing rituals or must-have snacks?
Coffee. Love it. I also write better after a good workout.
Behind the Book
Why did you choose this setting/topic?
I am fascinated with AI and the possible dangers that most, including me, have no idea about. That seemed so timely to me. The setting is where I live, so I think I was able to write with specificity for the locales. These are places I often go to.
If your book became a movie, who would star in it?
Good question. Haven’t really thought much about that! I would want it to be a series, not a movie. This allows for more character development and building intensity. One person I would love to play the female co-lead (Patricia) is actress Willa Fitzgerald. I have no idea how well-known she is, but I loved her in the Reacher series, I believe season one. Real southern accent too.
Which author(s) most inspired you?
Dan Brown. I read his Angels and Demons years ago and loved it. Like his intensity. I also like Trent Dalton. I like how well he brings in emotion and uses regular, struggling people for his characters. Besides that, I mainly read biographies. I’ve been tethered to academic books on couples therapy and doing couples therapy for decades. My hope is that this helps me bring a fresh style and perspective to the psychological thriller genre because I am new to it. I haven’t been shaped by what’s already out there.
I Didn’t Realize Being an Author Meant…
Being so lonely. It’s a lonely journey. You often ask yourself, “Is this any good?” “Is it entertaining?” But there are no answers because you’re just writing it – no one can read it yet. And once you’re about through you wonder if you’re a fool and just wasting your time. Having said that, I enjoy it greatly.
What do you hope your readers experience when reading your work?
My hope is that they will thoroughly enjoy the main characters’ relationships with each other. I try to show fear, anxiety, genuine care, and love in the relationship between main characters. I studied relationships for over 25 years. I want readers to feel real emotion in these relationships and the incredible suspenseful situations they find themselves thrown into. I am not trying to put across any agenda. I am trying to provide a wild ride that moves the reader through the gamut of emotions. Perhaps they can find parts of themselves in these characters, and pull for them, and against other characters, as they read.
Fun & Lighthearted Qs
What’s your go-to comfort food?
Chicken wings, hamburgers.
What are you binge-watching right now?
My wife has a lot of sway here. Right now it’s The Blacklist. I never watched it originally. I like the Reacher series too. I don’t care for much profanity or explicit sex scenes, so that limits things.
If you could time-travel, where would you go?
1969. Las Vegas. Elvis concerts when he was first coming back, in great shape, and killing it onstage. I’d take in about 50 concerts! My parents grew up around Elvis and his family, so it’s been a lifelong thing. Besides that it’d have to be when Jesus was here, which would be my first choice.
What’s something that made you laugh this week?
I get so much enjoyment from my pets. We have two dogs and a cat. They make me laugh. It’s my first cat, so she really cracks me up. They really do have unique personalities. And there’s something about those short interviews that actors do with Zach Galifianakis in Between Two Ferns. Cracks me up.
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