The moment an author associates his or her story with true events, it immediately sparks interest. But with this interest comes a certain expectation. In this case the author is Monte Plaisance and his book is entitled “The House on Judith Street”. Without simply adding to the hype I can honestly say that Plaisance did a great job in terms of delivery. He took on a big challenge – a tale of a haunted house – and he reached the other side with more than just a readable book.
The first part of the story takes place in the 1940’s, and it focuses on an eight year old girl with the name of Jill. She’s an only child who lives with her mother and father. Even though she attends a Catholic school, her parents participate in occult rituals. Without realizing it, Jill unleashes an entity by stealing the Seal of Solomon from her father’s secret drawer and takes it to school as a show and tell project. After shocking her teacher and being bullied by three boys in her class, Jill returns home to a much greater danger. The unknown events that follow result in the death of Jill, her parents, the three boys who bullied her and the detective who investigated their deaths afterward.
The second part jumps to 1990, where four college students decide to investigate the paranormal activity that surrounds the house before it gets torn down. They are set on proving the existence of the paranormal, although their previous attempts haven’t exactly provided anything substantial. As they trespass and set up inside the house, they find the evidence they were looking for. However, it presents more evidence than they expected. Among other apparitions, they come into contact with Jill, the spirit of the little girl who was found lodged inside the chimney forty five years earlier.
From the first page Plaisance gets the reader’s attention! In fact, he chose a brilliant place to start the book. I want to say that he used a fairly quick pace to capture the essence of the story he wants to tell, because this was my first impression, but he doesn’t really. It’s merely his judgment regarding what to reveal and when to do it that makes everything so intriguing. While the reader might believe everything happens rather quickly, Plaisance takes quite a few pages to reach the initial climax that inspires the desire to read till the end.
The degree of “truth” that actually goes into the story will depend heavily on the reader, because the author is in fact one of the college students that participated in the investigation. One has to remember that a great deal of fictional detail had to be added in order to fill the mysterious gaps. For example, the last thoughts Detective Bohamer had before his death and what he saw.
Truth and fiction aside, this really is a very entertaining book, especially for a tale based on a haunted house. In some cases it chilled me to the bone and as mentioned before, the author’s delivery is perfect to a fault. He doesn’t drag out unnecessary details and he doesn’t leave the reader wanting in the sections where it matters. As I finished the last page I was thoroughly impressed by what Plaisance achieved. If you are a fan of horror, regardless of your specific preference, you are going to love this story!
Reviewed by Damnetha Jules
Damnetha is a staff writer, horror book and movie critic.
Also by Monte Plaisance:
[…] When an author associates his or her story with true events, it immediately sparks our interest. But with this interest comes a certain expectation. In this case the author is Monte Plaisance and his book is entitled “The House on Judith Street”. It was recently reviewed by HorrorPalace.com. You can read the review here. […]