Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut.

Udgivet af William Morrow 

Joe Hill
Joe Hill is the author of a novel, Heart-Shaped Box, a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, and an occasional comic book series, Locke & Key. His second novel, Horns, will be available from William Morrow, in February of 2010. He lives in a small stone cell at the bottom of a chasm; there is only one steep, treacherous trail leading down to it, and the way is protected by fierce goats. You can get nearly daily doses of his pithy one-liners and mind-numbing insights over on Twitter, where he goes by the inspired handle of joe_hill. Now and then he even updates his blog.