Heart Shaped Box – Hill, Joe

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Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals… a used hangman‟s noose… a snuff

film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known

to his legions of fans as

the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest

discovery, an item for sale on the Internet, a thing so terribly strange, Jude can‟t help but reach for his

I will “sell” my stepfather‟s ghost to the highest bidder…

For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man‟s suit, said to be haunted by a

restless spirit. He isn‟t afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts — of an abusive father, of the

lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What‟s one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, no

benign conversation piece. It‟s the real thing.

And suddenly the suit‟s previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door…

seated in Jude‟s restored

vintage Mustang… standing outside his window… staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting — with a

gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one bony hand…

Scanner‟s note: I understand that Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King and this is his