Review: Long Black Coffin

Title: Long Black Coffin

Author: Tim Curran
Release Date: December 18th 2012
Publisher: DarkFuse
Pages: 390
Source: Netgalley

Summary:

“The Long Black Coffin is a '67 GTO. A street-eater and a life-taker. Like an open grave, it's hungry for death.

Vic Tamberlyn committed suicide in it. His son Kurt asphyxiated in it. Maybe there's no connection, but Kurt's best friend, Johnny Breede, doesn't believe it. He begins seeing dark connections, convinced that beneath the skin of the Coffin there beats a black, terrible heart. But it's even worse than he can imagine.

For the Long Black Coffin has a history. And that history will lead Johnny into a web of murder, insanity, and sexual perversion. He'll learn gruesome family secrets that connect a decade-old series of child abductions to a primordial evil that lives on in the car in the form of a sadistic teenage girl.

A girl whose mother was human, but whose father was anything but.”

My Thoughts: 

I have never been a huge horror fan but I’ve been trying to branch out and read different things. While I was browsing netgalley one day, this book caught my attention right away. While it wasn’t the best read ever, it was still enjoyable.

The writing was super creepy and compelling and captivated me from the prologue (which was creepy and made we want to read more). The writing kind of reminded me of Stephen King’s (which is saying a ton). The main protagonist Johnny Breede was funny and full of spunk but still was practical and had a conscious.  

While the story mostly had an eerie moods, there were some pretty cool scenes in it too. There was a lot of drug and party scenes that led to some interesting comments. My favorite line would have to be “Swear I just saw a unicorn smoking joints with centaurs”! Yes – that’s actually from the story. Those druggie scenes were majorly cray. I really liked these parts because as a new horror reader, it was nice to have some light parts to calm my nerves.

Now, onto the gory goodness. The actual horror story was really interesting, especially with the dark themes and mystery involved with this story. Kurt, who was Johnny’s best friend, played a huge role to the plot in the beginning. I really liked seeing his obsession with his father and trying to analyze his life. The real central part about Kurt was the introduction to his father who was cruel and had a deadly secret. The whole story from there has to do with Johnny discovering what it is and dealing with the demons that came with it.

There were a lot of sexual scenes that kind of added a weird twist to the story. If you don’t like sex or are too young, then I don’t suggest reading this book. There were parts in the book that felt long and drawn out but later those parts lead to something greater. Also, the mystery was built over time and actually served a purpose rather than a filler. Really loved that too.

Towards the end I started losing interest in the story simply because I got tired of the sex. Other than that, I’d recommend this book to those looking for a horror novel that isn’t super gory.

Rating: 3/5