Five Mile House: A Novel

Karen Novack's debut is breath-stealingly atmospheric and rife with suspense. Her protangonist, Leslie Stone, is one heck of a complicated character. She is very far from perfect. A few of her choices should probably make her unlikable, but somehow Novack imbues her with a certain je ne sais quoi, and you can empathise with her. To a point. This is fiction, but leaving her kids, age 10 and 5 to play alone at a lake, bothered me. A homicide detective who has seen one too many heinous crimes, she loses her senses and kills a suspected criminal, when the voice of the child victim whispers to her. I won't reveal more than that. Her husband takes her and the kids to an isolated and rather weird town. Where he is to work on a gothic house, with a history of pain and sadness. In the town of Wellington, Leslie and family meet all kinds of unusual souls. Drawn into a spooky and complicated conspiracy; will Leslie's discoveries be believed or scoffed at. Can she save her children. Or will her troubled past condemn her and her family to a bleak future. Karen Novack weaves a rich thread of prose into a wonderfully entertaining novel. I will be buying the rest of the series.

Eleanor Bly is the narrator of "Five Mile House" and our tour guide through the macabre. A 19th century gentlewoman, she was the wife of Joshua Bly, mother to eight children, and perhaps the most knowledgeable about the chilling history of the house, and of certain bizarre occurrences which took place in the late 1890s in the small lakeside town of Wellington, New England. The house is still located there, on Five Mile Hill, a landmark site. Eleanor has been dead now for a very long time. She has been waiting, alone, for someone to tell her story to. As a suicide, her soul is not at rest. She is bound to the earth until the truth about the nature of her death is brought to light. And so she describes to the reader, her only audience, the events and subsequent scandals which brought down her family...and herself. She waits in the tower, the highest room in the house, the one which had been hers. She awaits the convergence of past and future, and perhaps, for her salvation. In a busy New England city, far from Wellington and Five Mile House, Leslie Stone, her husband Greg, and their two adorable daughters, 4 year-old Emma, and Molly, age 10, get ready for another day at work, and, since it is the dog days of summer, daycare. Leslie is a police detective - a darn good one. Because of budget cutbacks, she had been assigned from her position on the Domestic Violence Task Force to the Homicide Division. The new assignment is tearing her apart. Most of the murder victims she has been dealing with have been small children. On this steamy summer morning, Leslie and her partner receive yet another homicide call. The victim is a tiny four-year-old girl, the same age as her daughter Emma. Leslie finds the child's bloodied, broken body. She had been viciously molested. Later that same morning Leslie, who has been on edge and under severe pressure for some time, totally snaps. She takes her gun into the holding cage where the murder suspect waits, and she shoots him dead. Detective Stone is tried, and found not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. The judge, concerned for her safety and that of others, has her committed to an appropriate institution until her doctors determine she is no longer a risk. So, former detective Stone, in a severe post trauma depression, is temporarily institutionalized. When she is released from the hospital, her husband, in an effort to change their environment, takes his family to a small New England town to work on a mysterious project, the restoration of Five Mile House. Greg is a building contractor and has been hired under strange circumstances. He is extremely under qualified for this visible and high paying job. It doesn't take long for the Stones to hear about Eleanor Bly, a 19th century madwoman who murdered her seven children in Five Mile House and then killed herself. Leslie becomes obsessed with Eleanor's story, suspecting that the truth may be different from the accepted myth. Wellington, locally known for its

Karen Novak writes with fabulous passion and insight into the very fabric of the human psyche. Her characters and plot represents this depth and weaves for us an amazing story of self-discovery - a must for readers into great plot lines and personable characters.

Tense police detective Leslie Stone relaxes in a comfortable marriage raising two precocious daughters. However, the homicide beat is tearing her apart, especially the killing of children. One day, Leslie snaps after another murder of a child. Leslie enters the cage where the suspect is detained and shoots him to death. Her sympathetic peers arrest her. She is acquitted based on temporary insanity, but is remitted to an institution to heal before returning home to her family.Leslie's spouse believes a change in environment will help Leslie recover. He accepts a restoration job in the small New England town of Wellington. The home, FIVE MILE HOUSE, is the place where a century ago, Eleanor killed her seven children before jumping from the tower. Leslie quickly hears of the local legend and some time afterward that a coven battles the Wellington family. Eleanor, a ghost haunting FIVE MILE HOUSE, believes her doppelganger Leslie will prove her savior when the war openly erupts between the Wiccan and the Wellington clan.Leslie and Eleanor narrate the story line until their lives converge at the surreal climax. The story line combines a mystery with a supernatural intrigue that works because the key players come across as actual individuals. The humans and even the ghost intermingle in a realistic manner with authentic motives (not that this reviewer can confirm what entails a genuine spirit). The unique tale will remind readers of The Sentinel (the movie not the comic book) while challenging the audience's beliefs on several planes. Karen Novak proves she is a terrific storyteller whose voice provides a fascinating cross-genre appeal.Harriet Klausner

How far would you go to protect your children? Would you kill for them? That's the question that I was left with after zipping through this intelligent, well-written, spooky, thrill ride of a book. Karen Novak has sent her main character, Leslie Stone, on a hero's quest involving a search for a sacred manuscript. The biggest part of the quest is Leslie's attempt to come to terms with her who she is and what she has done. You see, Leslie Stone is a detective, and, as the book opens, she has been sent to investigate the murder of yet another child, a four-year old girl who reminds her way too much of her own four-year old daughter. Before the end of the day, the suspect in this awful crime will be dead at Leslie's hands. Her life in shambles after serving her sentence, Leslie and her family move out to the country where her husband has gotten a job restoring an old mansion. This mansion, is, of course, haunted. But this is no ordinary ghost; Five Mile House is inhabited by a spirit who is as troubled as Leslie. This spirit, a woman, supposedly killed all of her children and then killed herself. Ever the detective, Leslie wonders if the legend covers up a grisly crime, and she sets out to investigate. There is a ton of stuff to talk about in this book, but I'm afraid I've come close to revealing too much already. I would highly recommend it.