I don’t remember where I heard or read this story, so it might not be true, but I heard that when Joe Hill was trying to get this book published, he didn’t tell anyone until he signed the contract that he was Stephen King’s son.  I was so impressed by that. He really could have used that to his advantage and instead he chose to try to make it on his own first. Kudos. [Edit: Okay, I did find a source of this from USA Today]

But can he compete with his famous father?  In a word, yes. I used to love Stephen King when I was in high school and have read several of his books. I can’t take much horror at all now, but I was really curious about Joe Hill’s writing and the book seemed like it had an interesting premise. At an online auction site, a guy buys a suit that’s supposedly haunted. The guy that buys it, Judas, is an older rock star who collects all sorts of crazy stuff so he’s unable to resist the suit when he’s prompted to do so by an email. Turns out, it’s a bad decision.

This book was creepy. Very creepy. I listened to it on audio CD, and I could only listen to it in the daytime. It was perfect for the R.I.P. Challenge, but it was a little too gritty for my tastes — otherwise I probably would have rated it 4 stars instead of 3.5. If you don’t care about such things and like Stephen King’s writing, there is almost no doubt you will like Joe Hill’s as well.

2007, 384 pp.

[Disclosure: I obtained this book from my local library.]