Five Mile House

In this strong debut, Novak combines suspense with modern witchcraft. Police detective Leslie Stone, a child abuse specialist, shoots an assumed perpetrator; after recuperation in a mental hospital, she leaves the police force. Then her carpenter husband, Greg, accepts an important restoration job at historic Five Mile House in the seemingly idyllic village of Wellington, whose main employer, a concrete recycling plant, is run by Wiccans who are searching for an ancient magical text. So is Harry Wellington, the owner of Five Mile House. As a curious Leslie researches the history of Wellington, Five Mile House and the deaths of the last family who inhabited it--the mother, Eleanor Bly, supposedly murdered seven of her children and committed suicide--she realizes she looks exactly like Eleanor. Is it coincidence or the reason the Stones were lured to Wellington? Leslie begins an edgy affair with local lawyer Phillip Hogarth and is befriended by enigmatic herbalist Gwen Garrett. Meanwhile, the ghosts of Eleanor and Amy, whose murder ended Leslie's police career, hover. Eleanor's ghost narrates part of the story, with some disconcerting shifts in tense. By the conclusion, Novak has the reader on tenterhooks as Leslie finds herself in mortal danger. Although this is more a damsel-in-distress novel with a supernatural bent than a traditional mystery, Novak successfully weaves the components together and leaves an opening for a sequel. Agent, Elizabeth Sheinkman at Elaine Markson. (Oct.)