The black suit with big silver buttons was supposed to be haunted. It would fit perfectly with Jude’s collection of the macabre which included a cookbook for cannibals, a used hangman’s noose, and a human skull that had been trepanned. For Jude, a fifty-four year old death-metal rock star, it was an easy decision to buy a ghost. The suit arrived in a black heart-shaped box and soon things begin to happen. This is not an ordinary ghost: he seems to have another purpose as he dangles a shiny sharp razor on the end of a chain and stares malevolently at Jude. In Joe Hill’s Heart-shaped Box, Jude is haunted not just by a ghost, but also by his own calloused past. He is living on a farm with only his goth girlfriend and two dogs and now Jude has the additional terror that he has brought home. This is a thrilling and frightening story that is hard to put down and full of surprises. This is Hill’s first novel, and it is a horrifying debut.