Shake the Devil Off

The author finally admits, when the book is almost complete, that he is sympathetic to the murderer. He stops shy of this admission, actually, writing that his wife felt he was, to the point of being angry with him. This book is an apology for the murderer, and the author forgot that the murder was not a quick act of passion, but rather a planned, gruesome saga that involved living with the corpse for over two weeks, and setting up a horrid tableau in order to scar those who followed the instructions in his suicide note. Brown works so hard to exonerate, somehow, the murderer from the full guilt of his crime that the book becomes a history of the war at some points.

This book about a couple that chose to stay in their apartment during (hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, 2005)
Zackery Bowen was a veteran in the American Army when they were in Iraq & Afghanistan & his friend Greg “Squirrel” Rogers was in the American Navy & they had a mutual unbreakable bond of brotherhood with each other.
Zack & his friend Squirrel are both a negative influence on each other & a enabler of their bad habits, since Zack's friend gives him a bag of drugs for free after Zack and his girlfriend Adrianne “Addie” Hall took care of him after he had a car accident.
Zack had already made up a lie about his girlfriend, supposedly ripping him off, taking his bag of drugs & leaving him to live with her family which wasn't true, what really happened was far worse.
They were both reliant on Zack's friend Greg to feed their drug habit.
Adrianne is already dead at this point, that's why Zack was acting suspiciously, he was very anxious while he was in the bar of the Omni Royal Hotel's rooftop bar and then decided to jump from the rooftop to his death.
Overtime the New Orleans police department unravelled what had transpired between Zackery Bowen & Adrianne & the people of New Orleans were shocked & disturbed by the grisly, gruesome details.
There's no explanation for how or why Zachary Bowen did what he did to his girlfriend, but demons can cause natural disasters so believe what you want to believe about that.
Only a man that is insane, mentally ill, suffering from combat related PTSD, (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder there are various reasons why people have PTSD) or was potentially possessed, influenced by a demon or entity or had a demonic attachment to him would kill their girlfriend, defiled her corpse, dismembered, mutilated their corpse, cooked their severed limbs with the intention to cannibalize their girlfriend's corpse for no apparent reason, then committed suicide.
He was already susceptible to the influence of drugs and alcohol and addicted to both, but nothing really explains what made him do what he did to his girlfriend other than being kicked out of the apartment, removed from the lease so he was pretty much made homeless.
Don't forget that this man was a father of two children-Jaxon & Lilly
He obviously felt anxious, guilty, ashamed of what he did, he was anxious about being caught so his way out of the situation was to end his life by jumping from the Omni Royal Rooftop bar roof to his death.
I think it's quite disgusting how Zackery Bowen & his girlfriend Adrianne were treated with nothing but disdain, hatred, intolerance & the way they were perceived by the Natives of New Orleans, spoken ill of by New Orleanians just because they weren't natives of New Orleans or didn't have any ancestry from there.
Not everyone that lives in New Orleans is born & raised there, or has ancestry from there, so I think it's disgusting how they were treated like unwanted outsiders, but I can also understand the unwanted bad publicity about Zackery murdering his girlfriend Adrianne when there were more important issues to focus on at the time.
People that suffer from PTSD depending on the context of their individual PTSD can affect them in various ways, it is psychological trauma due to experiencing very traumatic, distressing, or disturbing & non consensual events, incidents that have happened in their lives.
It can affect men and women, subtle things such as fireworks, loud sounds, flashing lights, a particular scent can trigger their traumatic memories, which makes the person feel very anxious, they are in a flight, fight, freeze, or fawn state of mind.
They can be unpredictable, very violent, angry, more aggressive than usual, for some people it might totally change their personality so they are a shell of the person they used to be due to trauma they have experienced.
Zackery Bowen at the time had undiagnosed (combat related PTSD) due to being in a very hostile, violent, volatile, combat environment while he was in the Army and stationed in Iraq & Afghanistan.
Not having been diagnosed with PTSD explains why his behaviour is weird, he was unaware that he was suffering from combat related PTSD it explains why people describe him as being a weird, unpredictable or a violent person.

This book is very slow-paced and some aspects of book are a little bit boring to read about.
I understand the author is explaining the background history of Zackery Bowen's life so you as a reader understand him better as a person and how he became a traumatized, soldier/civilian but it's long winded, it takes forever to get to the point of the book being created in the first place.
There is some information about Zack living in New Orleans as a teenager which describes his personality, his awkward, socially anxious, somewhat needy type of personality.
It's not until Chapter 8 that Zack's life in New Orleans and how he met his girlfriend Adrianne “Addie” Hall that he eventually horrifically murders, defiles her corpse, mutilates, dismembers and partially cooks her corpse with the intention to cannibalise her corpse, it's insane.

Chapters 4-7 were somewhat interesting, but also boring and depressing to read.
I never understood why any military organization, Corp doesn't have mental health, or counselling facilities for the traumatized, combat soldiers to prevent any unexpected incidents when they leave the army, after serving for several years.
PTSD induced paranoia, gun related violence, unaliving of themselves because they can't adjust back into civilian life, it's too difficult for some people, they saw their comrades, their friends die in front of them while they were helpless, overpowered by the terrorist, or foreign enemy that's in control and have power or weapons of mass destruction in the country they are deployed in.
A lot of male & female combat soldiers are traumatized and suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety etc.. There should be more done to help them, especially if they were also injured in combat war zones.
How Zachary Bowen met his girlfriend Adrianne “Addie” Hall and the events leading up to the horrific, creepy and disturbing crime Zachery committed and his own suicide afterwards is explained.
I can understand for this particular incident that this is why Zahery Bowen was hated, but I don't understand the hatred towards his girlfriend.
Both were prone to consuming copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, their relationship was a love/hate, very volatile and abusive, toxic relationship, it's a very codependent type of relationship that they had.
To be honest i'm not surprised that Zackery Bowen murdered his girlfriend-what is disturbing, creepy and absolutely disgusting is how easily and calmly Zachery strangled Addie, but then defiled her corpse several times, disarticulated her corpse-(dismembered her corpse) then partially cooked and consumed some of her corpse. What the actual fuck? Why?
No one deserves this to happen to them, not even an abusive ex, it's totally fucked up, unnecessary, it wasn't justified or deserved.
He wrote a suicide note/confession of the murder of his girlfriend Adrianne “Addie” Hall then committed suicide.
People don't just randomly kill their girlfriend, violate & defile their corpse, dismember them,then partially cook and consume them for no apparent reason, so this has always seemed to me at least that there was a demon or entity attached to him and it influenced, coerced or potentially possessed him and that's was one of the contributing factors for why he did what he did, but it's just a theory.
There have been cases of people that were possessed and they committed murder, very strange, bizarre or unexplained behaviour, which included murder & cannibalism so form your own opinion about that.
The type of murder/suicide & what Zachery did to Adrianne is overkill, intense, bitter hatred of Adrianne in my opinion.
It's really sad and disturbing that men or women that are veterans that have PTSD don't receive the help they clearly need, they are traumatized, emotionally, mentally, psychologically damaged by what they have experienced during combat, warfare in war torn countries they are fighting against.
There is a documentary about the relationship Zachery Bowen & Adrianne Hall had and her murder/his suicide.