MY VERDICT? Can you enjoy a book with a dislikable main character? Joe Hill’s Judas Coyne is an unpleasant misogynist who refers to his many younger girlfriends by the their birth state, not their birth name. He is, in short, a revolting man. But…the premise is fantastic; the tension unbearable and the plot hooked me in and didn’t let go. I didn’t know Joe Hill was Stephen King’s son until after I’d read it, but the influence is unmistakable. So, gross main character and dodgy attitudes aside, 5*.
THE BLURB:
Aging death-metal rock legend Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals…a used hangman’s noose…a snuff film. But nothing he possesses is as unique or as dreadful as his latest purchase off the Internet: a one-of-a-kind curiosity that arrives at his door in a black heart-shaped box…a musty dead man’s suit still inhabited by the spirit of its late owner. And now everywhere Judas Coyne goes, the old man is there–watching, waiting, dangling a razor blade on a chain from his bony hand.
R. P. Bolton Author 