John Fons

A Question of Possession - a Novel John Fons

Publisher Marketing: Jack and his widowed Aunt Rita have gone missing from Rita's stately home, Fairways. The only clues as to their whereabouts are contained in cheap, school-boy writing tablets discovered by Jack's mother, Nell, during her covert search of Fairways. Nell, for reasons of her own, chooses to withold their existence from Jack's father, Paul, and from the local sheriff, reading them at night in the privacy of her locked bedroom. These writings, as Nell quickly discovers, were the handiwork of her teenage-son Jack and the live-in 'spirit' - who tells Jack that his name is 'Fritz," and claims to be a dead Luftwaffe pilot. The 'spirit' of the aristocratic Fritz entered Jack's body at the time the young boy suffered a traumatic head injury; an event which coincided with Fritz's death in Germany - under questionable circumstances - in the waning days of World War II. In his writings Jack tells of his extraordinary, complicated relationship with the 'spirit', of his troubled home-life, of the life-changing love of his Aunt Rita, of his 'comong-of-age' experiences, and of the mysterious Jewish war-refugee, Hannah. In his own writings, Fritz tells of his privileged life in Nazi Germany, of his evil antagonist, Oberst Dietrich Muenster, of his efforts to survive treachery and deceit, and of his struggles to keep the accident-prone Jack alive. The 'spirit' believes that Jack is his only means for returning undetected to Germany to resolve unsettled matters. Jack's father, Paul, mounts his own search for the missing Jack and Rita, but without the benefit of the information contained in the writings. His search is also plagued with partial, out-of-date information and unanswered questions. Is Jack's 'spirit' real? Is Jack actually possessed by an 'evil spirit'? Can Jack and Rita be found, in time?