Heart-Shaped Box

"I will 'sell' my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder . . . "

An aging death-metal rock god, Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals ... a used hangman's noose . . . a snuff film. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as an item he learns is for sale on the Internet. For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by the deceased's restless spirit. Judas has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts—of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed—so what's one more?

But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost, it's the real thing. And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere behind the bedroom door .. seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang . . . staring out from his widescreen TV—dangling a gleaming razor blade on a chain from one hand . . .