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The Distant Dead
By Heather Young
William Morrow, 9780062690814, June 2020, 352pp.

The Short of It:

A really good story, but not at all what I expected going into it.

The Rest of It:

A math teacher is found dead. His body, burned beyond recognition. Young Sal, one of his students makes the grisly discovery. The police determine it’s a homicide but no one has a clue how a mild mannered school teacher could be killed in this manner. Adam Merkel was fairly new to the area. Having only been there for seven months, no one had really gotten to know the man, except maybe Sal, who spent his lunches in Merkel’s classroom as a way to escape the schoolyard bullies and his loneliness and sadness over his mother’s death a year earlier.

This is a sad, tragic story. Although Merkel’s murder is front and center, the loss of Sal’s mother and the tragedy that Merkel faced before his death ties these two characters together in a very special way. When I picked this book up, I thought it was a murder mystery, and although there is a murder to solve, there is a lot more going on in the story than you would imagine.

Sal is a complex kid. He’s mature and able to feel and see things that a child his age might not normally notice. To escape the foster care system after his mother’s death, he’s forced to live with his two wayward uncles. One has an anger problem and the other is a drug dealer. They don’t seem to pay him any mind, as evidenced by his clothing that is too small or the fact that he never has enough to eat. So when Merkel takes a liking to the boy and provides support and friendship that Sal so desperately needs, Sal finds that he will do anything for the man.

Just so you know, there is NO, absolutely NO child molestation in this story. It might seem like that is where this story is headed so I wanted to tell you not to fear, this is not that kind of story. Instead it’s a story about pain and loss and friendship and what it means to be a family.

I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Heart-Shaped Box
By Joe Hill
William Morrow Paperbacks, 9780061944895, 2009, 400pp.

The Short of It:

This is a classic ghost story with all the horror elements you’d expect from Hill, without it being too graphic.

The Rest of It:

Judas Coyne is a fifty-something ex-rocker who has a taste for the macabre. He collects things that most people wouldn’t, which is how he comes to possess a suit that comes with a ghost. As Jude (short for Judas) learns, this ghost is not just any ghost and he means business.

This is the story of Jude and his girlfriend Marybeth, also known as Georgia. When this suit arrives in a heart-shaped box, Jude is intrigued. He has no idea what to expect but he doesn’t have to wait long to find out. The suit is accompanied by a ghost named Craddock and what begins as mild curiosity turns into a fight for their lives as Craddock takes them down the “night road” and continues to display glimpses of their future to them. A future where Jude murders the ones he loves.

This was a fantastic read and it’s been on my to-read shelve for YEARS. Not sure why I waited so long to get to it but I wish I had gotten to it sooner. Joe Hill. He’s Stephen King’s kid in case you don’t know but he definitely has his own sense of style when it comes to storytelling and from the very first page I was riveted and had to know the outcome of these two characters.

If I had to find any fault with it at all, I would say that as soon as the ghost makes his appearance, the one thing that made me curious about the book in the first place went out the window. All the macabre stuff that he collected over the years was never mentioned again. Someone with a penchant for that sort of thing would perhaps use it to his advantage? I was expecting it to become part of the story but that never happened.

I really enjoyed the character of Marybeth (Georgia). She was sweet but with a hard edge. I could not help but root for her. Hill did a good job of writing her as strong, but also vulnerable. She brought just the right mix of danger plus loyalty to the story.

Now for the fear factor. A reader on Facebook advised me to read it during the day, that it could get pretty intense. It was intense at times but like a “race to the finish” intense. All of the horror elements were appropriately creepy but I didn’t feel that Hill tossed anything in there for shock value alone. I really enjoyed it.

I read this for the R.I.P Challenge.

Source: Purchased
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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