Cedar Hill has had its fair share of calamities. There was the mass murder when the town was originally settled, there was the explosion at the casket factory (which is where the town gets its macabre nickname), and there were several others besides. But the killing spree that's starting now might overshadow them all with its body count and the gruesomeness of the crimes, not to mention the incredibly bizarre, almost supernatural evidence the police are uncovering.
Ben Littlejohn is one of the detectives investigating the massacre at the Cedar Hill diner. The bodies have been left with their identification on top of them, no head shots, and the killer has left a perfect hand print on the door for fingerprinting. You'd think this would make the job easier, but no, it complicates things. The killer’s still out there and the longer he is, the more it seems like other people are starting their own killing sprees. Just what exactly is going on in Cedar Hill, and will the pieces of this puzzle fall into place before the entire town has gone mad?
I really thought I was going to enjoy this book. In fact, I really wanted to. It's written with such a fun style - narration like the story is being orated to you; a main character that doesn't appear until 60 pages in; and a timeline that jumps all over the place in the beginning. I thought Braunbeck had not only written a novel, but a mental challenge, a little something to exercise the mind. But alas, this ended up being the literary equivalent of painting yourself into a corner, letting the paint dry, then packing up and going home without finishing.
For as wonderful a scenario Gary Braunbeck sets up, Coffin County fails to deliver in the end, as much cutting off without a satisfying resolution as it seems he just got tired of writing it and submitted the first thing that popped into his mind as an ending. Apparently the man's won 2 Bram Stokers based on the blurbs on the book, but this novel just makes me think either the voting is rigged or the competition non-existent. I am very sorely disappointed in what seems almost a deliberate trash ending to a beginning with such potential, and the two short story bonuses set in Cedar Hill that accompany the novel do not make up for it and, actually, kind of just beat the dead horse. It's a shame that a novel with such potential and so many great ideas can have such a bad ending but, sadly, I see that as being the standard instead of the exception these days.
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Mass Market Paperback: 333 pages
Publisher: Leisure (May 27, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0843960507
ISBN-13: 978-0843960501