​BOOK REVIEW: THE SIREN AND THE SPECTER BY JONATHAN JANZ

by tony jones 

A celebrated ghost debunker gets a serious case of the chills when he visits the Alexander House in complex and convincing supernatural drama

There is a never-ending conveyor-belt of haunted house novels on the market and at first glance it could be easy to discard Jonathan Janz’s “The Siren and the Specter” as ‘another one of those’. Don’t be put off though, the novel may well start in familiar haunted house territory, but soon it bobs, sneaks, and twists in a variety of directions to raise it out of the pack. I’m very hard to please when it comes to this stuff, but immediately realised there were several strands to this compelling supernatural mystery. It’s an entertainingly atmospheric novel, which goes at its own pace, drip feeding some excellent plot twists whilst all the drifting away from being ‘just another haunted house novel’.
 
The novel is seen from the point of view from a celebrated sceptic of the spooky kind, David Crane, an academic who has written numerous books debunking the phenomenon of haunted houses. In the opening stages we find out David has agreed to spend a month in the Alexander House, which has recently been bought by one of his oldest friends and his wife. The house has the reputation of being “the most haunted house in Virginia” which the couple hope to turn into local tourist attraction. If a supernatural debunker like David was to write something scary about what he experienced during his month residency it would greatly help their cause. They of course, are banking on something special occurring. The problem is David doesn’t believe in ghosts, but his old friend is certain the supernatural rumours are based on fact not superstition.
 
The first very strong and page-turning element of “The Siren and the Spectre” was for a good 75% it leads you on a merry dance of whether something otherworldly is going on at all. It could be that someone is trying to con David? However, after settling in he is sure he feels a dark and oppressive mood in the house, and consciously avoids going upstairs, but he puts this down to his overactive imagination. This is all very well balanced and convincingly builds bridges for later in the story. The scenes with David and the house on their own are convincingly drawn and there are some unsettling moments. But is the house haunted? This review is going to avoid spoilers so you’re going to have to read the book for yourself to find out. However, this is not ambiguous ‘make your own mind up horror’ which seems to be popular these days, once Jonathan Janz lets the story spin into over-drive around 75% of the way in he really lets it all hang out.
 
David Crane was a particularly well drawn lead character who in some ways became more unlikable as the book progressed. We find out, over the years, he has been a real shark with women and has led a particularly self-centred life. There is also long-standing antagonism with his old friend Chris over an ex-girlfriend who committed suicide after she was dumped by David over two decades earlier. What’s this got to do with a haunted house novel? As I said, the book has several layers which make the story somewhat deeper than a haunted house yarn and this is where the twists lie. 
 
Strangely enough, some of the most unsettling scenes have got nothing to do with ghosts, and I’m not sure whether this was deliberate or not. The Alexander House sits on a secluded bank of the Rappahannock river and there are only a few neighbours including a truly dysfunctional couple who openly watch hardcore pornography in front of their two young children, along with lots of other unpleasant antics. This is another story-thread which is cleverly filtered into the main plot which involves the local police. David is the stranger in this rural area and so suspicion turns upon him in further plot developments.
 
Whether the supernatural is at work or not, David’s past certainly comes back to haunt him in the shape of a couple of plot shifts in the second half of the novel. Along the way there are some good support characters, none of which are window-dressing, bringing extra flavour to the plot. Alexander House was a fine setting and the novel also throws in a full back-story dating back to a 1700s land baron and his sadistic, murdering, son.
 
You could argue that “The Siren and the Spectre” is much more restrained than many of Janz’s other novels, but the strait-jacket certainly comes off in the final sections. As I said to begin with there are lots of haunted house novels on the market and this offering is well worth having a look at. This is a ghost story, but its real strength are the convincing plots the author builds on top of the more familiar elements. Recommended. 
 
Tony Jones