I had a bad experience with Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box, inasmuch as I took a violent dislike to the hero right from the start, and the book never recovered. He was a bit of an arsehole anyway, but I'm not sure I was supposed to despise him quite as roundly as I did, and it says something for Hill's writing that I stuck with the book all the way to the end, because Hill could clearly write like hell. Then there was Lock & Key, the comic series he writes for IDW, which is just about as damn brilliant a comic as you could hope to find. So I was interested to see what this was going to be like.

So young Vic McQueen has a bike that allows her to find lost things, but which also brings her into contact with one Charlie Manx, who has a Rolls Royce Wraith that takes him to a place he calls Christmasland. He likes to bring children with him. They never leave. Vic's experiences take a terrible psychic toll, but years later as she tries to put her life back together and reconnect with her son, the body of one Charlie Manx disappears from a hospital morgue and Vic and Manx are about to meet again.

What it reminded me mostly of, strongly, forcefully, in fact, was the sort of epic horror fantasy I used to gobble like maltesers in the eighties and nineties. King, Straub, McCammon, Campbell, Simmons. It becomes quite clear that this is very much on purpose, and this is a fond homage to that beloved genre, quite specifically to that of King. So there is spookiness and terror and horror and suspense and adventure; but will good Triumph over evil? Read it yourself to find out. It's a great Summer read. Fast-moving, extremely well written and utterly engaging. Merry Christmas!