Haunting...

I'm a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk. A big fan. Two of his books are among the best modern novels that I've read: Fight Club and Diary: a novel. And haunted isn't far from those two.

Sometimes, Chuck runs astray - Choke and Lullabye - in which case there's creativity gone wrong, sickly wrong.

And I'll admit that his books aren't for the faint of heart - often gruesome and frequently scary - but when he nails it, he's right there with the best in the business.

In this novel, a group of writers locks themselves away for three months to avoid distractions from the world so that they can each craft their masterpieces. The characters are revealed in a series of poems about and short stories by each character. To say more would be to ruin the surprise - as it often would in reviewing Chuck's works.

At first I thought that this was simply a collection of short stories, ideas that didn't make it into full novels, that Chuck had tied together with a framing mechanism, but it turns out that the short stories are pure gold - espeically "Nightmare Box," and absolutely fabulous story with no spare words whatsoever, incredible - and the framing device leads to great suspense. The last short story is a little odd and doesn't really fit with the others, but the rest of the novel is incredible. High, high recommendations.

But don't just take my word for it...check what others had to say...or a very detailed review...