Adriana Rubio’s latest non-fiction attempt to pry into the private life of a dead rock star proves only to be confusing, drawn out and unprofessionally written.

“Jim Morrison: Ceremony” focuses primarily on The Doors’ Jim Morrison and his indeterminate death in Paris in 1971, but the artist himself is not exclusively mentioned until almost 100 pages into the work.

The first chapters are dedicated entirely to shamanism, voodoo, the occult and witchcraft practices that could have played a role in Morrison’s life as well as his death.

A variety of ways the artist could have used these practices to fake his own death are presented as Rubio struggles to discover whose body lies in Morrison’s grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery (Morrison, perhaps?).

While it is obvious that Rubio has extensively investigated these subjects, her opinions weaken the facts, and much of the information presented in “Ceremony” has been twisted to strengthen Rubio’s exhausted beliefs.

These chapters have the potential to be very informative, but the manner in which they are written is confusing and full of contradictions and quotes that have no real significance.

Even the evidence provided is not effective — Rubio backs her belief that Morrison may have been initiated as a shaman with the song The End, in which the tempo speeds up throughout the song.

According to the author, this could only mean that Morrison was on the verge of slipping into a shamanic trance.

Oh, and for those of us who didn’t know — it is very unlikely that Jim Morrison ingested a “magic powder” from Haiti, turned into a zombie and was sold into slavery where he now works on a sugar plantation. Thanks “Ceremony.”

One interesting aspect of the book is the fact that Rubio actually located Gerald Pitts, a man who claims to have evidence that Jim Morrison is living with his controlling wife Marsha in the woods of Oregon where they sell horses. Rubio communicated through this man with a series of letters and telephone calls that she transcribed into “Ceremony.”

This investigation was entertaining until it became obvious that Rubio did not get an interview with the man Pitt claims is Jim Morrison and thus had no point.

I should have known to back away from “Ceremony” when I opened the book (which had a large picture of Morrison’s face on the cover) and realized that Rubio had dedicated the work to Layne Stanley and of course, Kurt Cobain.

Even hardcore Doors fans could probably not get through this book, because the actual Morrison information is smothered by layers of unrelated material, misspelled words (her name is Janis Joplin, not Janis Choplin) and pictures of various religious relics.

For the few of you who may be interested in reading this book, look for “Ceremony” gathering dust at your local head shop.