And yet he does, and it is a completely engaging ride, filled with twists, turns, reveals, and legitimately unnerving scares.

It ends up being a fast-moving tale, and one that surprised me, as I couldn’t quite figure out how Hill would sustain what starts out as a simple ghost story for four hundred pages. Hill’s storytelling plays things out matter-of-factly, one minute Judas may be completely alone, sitting in his car, only to turn and see this terrifying old, dead man sitting next to him, his voice spilling from the speaker system promising death. When he comes across an offer to buy a real ghost, or at least the suit of a dead man with the promise that the ghost will come with it, he snaps it up.Īnd finds himself in a fairly spooky ride along the night road of the dead, as the ghost proves to be real, and seems to have it in for Judas.Īfter watching countless horror films, too many of which rely on jump scares and musical stings, it’s rather pleasant, and truly enjoyable to dig into a ghost story that all takes place in the theatre of the reader’s mind. Judas Coyne (not his real name) is in his fifties and he is a heavy metal god, or he was, now he’s semi-retired, and is an avid collector of the strange and the weird. After enjoying Hill’s short story collection a couple of weeks ago, as well as his fantastic work on Locke & Key, I decided to give a full novel a try, and the result ends up being a very satisfying ghost story, as we dive into a world of sex, violence and rock’n’roll.

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