Book Review: Heart-Shaped Box
Judas Coyne is a retired heavy metal rock star, living a meaningless life until his assistant tells him about a listing for a “ghost for sale” on Ebay. A collector of macabre artifacts, he jumps at the chance to win a haunted suit and places a bid. The suit arrives in a heart-shaped box a short time later. Sure enough, it is haunted by a ghost and he wants vengeance.
Jude contacts the seller of the suit and learns that she is the sister of his ex-girlfriend, whom he’d nicknamed Florida. The ghost is Craddock McDermott, step-father of the girls. Both he and the surviving sister blame Judas for Florida’’s suicide. They want Jude to die and anyone else who tries to interfere in what they feel is justice. Heart-Shaped Box is a superb tale of love and redemption. I opened this book expecting to hate Judas Coyne on many levels. He wasn’t a nice person, especially in the beginning. By the middle of the book, I found out why. And by the end, I rooted for him and his girlfriend, Marybeth (a.k.a. Georgia). Hill did a great job crafting his flawed characters. There was a little bit of gore and plenty of hair-raising scenes. This has become one of my favorite books for 2007.
