Craddock suggests, then seemingly hypnotises Julia into agreeing, that no one would suspect murder if they slit Anna’s wrists just right. When she confronts Julia and Craddock, after Jude has sent her home, they stall her until nightfall, the time at which Julia has embedded a compulsion to make Anna take pills and fall into a deep sleep. Anna sunk into deep depression for the rest of her life.

Julia embraced her step-father and his ways, believing that he loved her, her sister, and her child. Anna, her sister Julia and her niece Reese, were all molested by Craddock, usually while under deep hypnosis, which Craddock learned while in Vietnam. Anna reveals a few secrets, including one that Jude did not want to acknowledge. Jude’s current girlfriend, MaryBeth Kimball aka Georgia, refuses to leave Jude, so Craddock vows to get her too.Īfter unsuccessfully trying to outsmart and outrun Craddock, Jude and MaryBeth use a Ouija board to contact Anna. Craddock is determined to make Jude’s life a living hell, but not just his. The girl in question, Anna aka Florida, is said to have committed suicide after Jude sent her home when he couldn’t deal with her depression and didn’t know how to help her. The suit, though, really is haunted by the ghost of a former lover’s step-daddy, Craddock McDermott, and he has vowed to make Jude pay for what he did to his little girl. He thinks it’s a bit of a hoax, but nonetheless. So, when his manager shows him an eBay-like sale for a haunted suit, he jumps on it. He enjoys the obscure, the macabre, and the occult. Jude Coyne, semi-retired rock star and all around a-hole, has a thing for creepy stuff.

There’s more than a bit of truth to the retail caution “Buyer Beware.” The idea that a suit could be haunted was also intriguing. It was trippy in all the right ways, and since I couldn’t get my hands on the source material and my second option was too long, I read this. Also, I watched Horns, which is based on his book of the same name. His name has come up in conversation many a time among my librarian friends, because he writes well. Joe Hill, son of Stephen and Tabitha King, is a great storyteller. I read this, because NOS4A2 was too long for me in the time I had.

Heart shaped box novel