Heart-Shaped Box

Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (December 22, 2009)
4/5 Stars

The hero of Heart-Shaped Box is Jude Coyne, a middle-aged metal-rock star with a fascination for the morbid which shows itself, not only in his music, but also in his collection of creepy curios. When he sees a ghost being auctioned on the internet, he knows he has to have it for his collection. If it's a real ghost, cool; if it's not, it's still good press.

The seller states that she will send the buyer her stepdad's suit, because that is what the ghost seems to be clinging to, in the expectation that the ghost will follow the suit.

The suit arrives.

All hell breaks loose.

Hill's supernatural thriller is intense and frightening in the first section as the ghost makes his plans known to Jude--so much so that I often felt the pound of my heart. In the second part, as Jude begins to formulate a plan to survive the ghost, it feels like an action thriller, with car chases and gun standoffs and physical danger. As the story winds up to the climax, it returns to pure preternatural terror and then, thankfully, the storm is over and the final sections pull it all together with fine prose.

Hill's writing is excellent. He displays emotions so well, layers upon layers of emotion, that the characters actions and reactions are fully believable. The emotional depth of this story was surprising at times, and there were some very beautiful moments in the midst of all the thrills.

The characters are well developed, with back stories being fleshed out in a natural way, through memories and conversation. The only flaw I found in the book was that the hero suffered from Dan Brown Syndrome--Jude was able to keeping going an unnaturally long amount of time while injured. That said, Hill explained Jude's relationship to pain earlier in the book, and Jude often passed out, slept, hurt and was cranky. So, while he had way more pain tolerance that was probably possible, Hill covered all his bases with that one and it isn't a serious problem.

The importance of music in the story was a nice angle. I particularly enjoyed all the references to classic metal-rock bands, musicians and songs, some obvious and some very subtle.

Overall I was very impressed with Hill's prose, style and plot development. Heart-Shaped Box is more than just a "horror" novel. It is a well crafted novel that is certainly worth reading.

Two out of three ain't bad

The Surgeon
Tess Gerritsen

The Surgeon, like Caesar's Gaul, is composed of three parts. It's a fast-moving, well-written tale of cops, doctors, and a serial killer, and what happens when you shake them all together in a hot Boston summer.

The medical portion is fascinating and seemingly factual - no surprise, since Ms Gerritsen is a medical doctor. The surgery and hospital procedures ring effortlessly and naturally true.

The serial killer portion is repulsive, and utterly gripping. So far as we know, Ms Gerritsen is NOT a serial killer, but her descriptions of how the mind of such a monster works makes one wonder.

It is in the police portion that the novel that falls flat. Despite crediting real-life detectives for their help, The Surgeon's police procedures resemble what one sees on TV more than how detectives actually work. The discrepancies are too many to list - suffice it to say that any page of this novel involving a detective is hackneyed, cliched, TV-flavored nonsense.

I've worked around cops and investigators for several years. This isn't how they talk, act, or work.

That Tess Gerritsen can write is beyond dispute. I thoroughly enjoyed The Surgeon and will read more of her work. I'll just accept the depictions of police work as pure entertainment.

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

The Apprentice
Tess Gerritsen
Publisher: Ballantine Books (July 29, 2003)
Read: 6 January 2011
3/5 stars

After having to stay up all night to read The Surgeon, it was with great excitement that I opened The Apprentice, and at first I was not disappointed. A grisly serial killer was beginning to imitate "the Surgeon", who Detective Jane Rissoli had put away a year ago. Given the similarities, she's called in to check out a case outside of Boston, and then becomes lead detective when "the Dominator" strikes again inside Boston.

This had all the elements to be a excellent page turner, but it just fell flat somehow. Where the previous novel left me looking over my shoulder, this one just didn't give me the same thrills. The mystery solution was just not as believable, and the danger and fright elements were just not as jarring. Even the serial killer action just didn't have the same edge to it.

Oh, it was a good enough read; I still read it all in one sitting, because I was curious as to how it ended. But, it simply was not as good as the other two novels I have read by Ms. Gerritsen, simply didn't live up to it's potential. If this had been the first novel I had read by her, it would probably be the last. As it is, I'll just say it is not a good example of her fine writing talent.

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

The Surgeon
Tess Gerritsen
4/5 stars


I had previously read Ms. Gerritsen's most recent novel, Ice Cold, and liking it very much was looking forward to starting the series from the beginning. As a lucky happenstance, a friend gave me The Surgeon as my first-ever gifted Kindle book!

In the Surgeon, the reader first meets Jane Rizzoli, who becomes one of the main characters for Ms. Gerittsen's series. As the only female in the detective unit of the Boston PD, she feels she has much to prove, has to stay tough, and work harder than anyone else. When a gruesome set of murders begin appearing around Boston, Jane stakes claim on the case. As the case develops, she and fellow Detective Moore find connections to this serial killer and one killed two years ago. Before it is all resolved, Jane finds herself fighting for more than just an equal place on the team, as she faces down the killer.

This is certainly more thriller than mystery, as the mystery conclusion is rather secondary to the thrills (as is standard in most thrillers); I was rather disappointed with the anonymity of the killer until I realized that fact. The action is fast paced, but not unrealistically so, and the mind of "unsub" is revealing in small, chilling doses. Ms. Gerritsen's uses her medical knowledge to describe hospital scenes in detail, adding another edge to the thrill. I have read complaints about her description of police detective work, but having no knowledge myself on which to base it, I did not see it an unbelievable.

Despite not being completely satisfied with the mystery aspect (as I noted, it was a learning moment for me, to realize the most definite difference between mystery and mystery/thriller), I enjoyed the thrills and chills of the novel. I read it in one sitting, listening for strange sounds the whole time. I look forward to reading more my Ms. Gerritsen.