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	C.E. Japhe C.E. Japhe is an horror/mystery writer and avid reader, currently living in the panhandle of West Virginia. In addition to formerly serving as an editorial reviewer for FMAM, she is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA).

A HOUSE DIVIDED
Deborah LeBlanc
Leisure Books, $6.99, 336 pp.
ISBN: 0-8439-5730-1

Keith Lafleur, a greedy developer, has been presented a deal he can't refuse--to make way for a new super drugstore, he can have the huge, old, dilapidated house that currently occupies the lot, free of charge. Only one catch--he has has to move it. It's too big to move as it is, so he does the logical thing--he cuts it in half, thereby disturbing the unsettled spirit occupants.

So begins A HOUSE DIVIDED. The focus of the novel is on the new tenants of the now-divided house, now on the same street in Windham, Louisiana, separated by a seamstress shop--Laura, Tawana, and the psychic Moweez in the Beauty Box, and Matt and his son Seth in the Tin Cup Café. In both parts of the house, the tenants run their businesses from the first floor and live on the upper floor. When strange things start to happen to both households, they try to dismiss them as imagination. But as the strange happenings escalate and turn deadly, it becomes clear they have to take action. They decide to start by finding out who the original occupants of the house were, and what happened to them. And to complicate matters even further, Keith Lafleur is steadily descending into disfiguring physical illness and madness, seemingly triggered by the house, making him a danger to everyone in town.

A HOUSE DIVIDED is engrossing as a study in Cajun tradition, with the colorful descriptions of Mardi Gras and the rituals of a 'treateur.' Unfortunately, the coincidences keep piling up, the next even more improbable than the last. If you can suspend all logic, you will find A HOUSE DIVIDED an enjoyable read.

C.E. Japhe

DEATH GOES DUTCH
Albert Bell
Ingalls/High Country, $13.95, 304 pp.
ISBN: 1932158650

Sarah de Graaf, a social worker who unites adoptees with their biological families, finds herself in a quandary. Still reeling from a breakup with her long-term boyfriend, she finds herself attracted to Josh, her latest client, a man looking for his biological parents. To complicate matters, she finds that Josh's biological mother is a dead furniture heiress, and Josh, if he is really who he says he is, stands to inherit $6 million.

But is Josh who he says he is? As Sarah delves into the lives of her client and his biological family, family secrets and mysteries that have been long-buried start to see the light of day. She finds herself caught up in unraveling the mystery of her client's mother's death, with the help of her policeman ex-boyfriend and his gorgeous, lesbian partner.

The story is interesting and basically well-told, although the bad guys seem to fold a little too easily when confronted at the end. The real interest is in the flavor the author is giving us of western Michigan, an area settled primarily by Dutch immigrants in the 19th century. Equally interesting are the problems and dilemmas that face Sarah, as a Korean-American adoptee herself. Sarah has devoted her life to reuniting adoptees and their biological families, but she has little hope of ever finding her biological parents.

DEATH GOES DUTCH is very good as a character study with some regional flavor, and a decent little murder mystery thrown in.

C.E. Japhe

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