Created by Mona Williams
(1905-91)
When Tony Lopez comes to San Sebastián, California for dinner with his employers, he promptly disappears, in the 1978 horror novel This House is Burning.
Private detective ALAN BONNER is soon dispatched to find Lopez, and is soon asking questions all over town, and his attention is soon drawn to the, uh, colorful Sunberg household, lorded over by perennially smiling used car king Sam and his well-endowed wife who keeps to herself–when she’s not exposing herself to strangers.
The kids are real winners too. Gus is a drunk, Luke is a little slow on the uptake, Thelma is an unstable, hot-to-trot sexpot, and the baby, well, that kid just ain’t right. Only teenager Kristin seems okay–at least in comparison, but she’s not very happy that that Bonner is poking around.
What he eventually discovers is no big mystery, though.
One look at the cover of the paperback (pictured) or even the hardcover, for that matter, pretty much gives it all away. But for readers who still don’t get it, the paperback’s tagline makes it pretty clear:
A FAMILY POSSESSED AND TORMENTED BY A TERRIFYING FORCE OF DEMONIC EVIL – A NOVEL OF SOUL-CHILLING OCCULT HORROR…
Unfortunately, while most critics praised the book for its scene setting and moody atmospherics, the general consensus was that it dragged as a mystery.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Rutland, Vermont in 1905, Mona Williams was an American novelist and poet, whose work was ranged from romance and domestic drama to horror and suspense. She also sold articles, fiction and poetry to magazines including The Writer, McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal and Cosmopolitan, but is perhaps best known as the author of the novelette May the Beast Wife Win, from which the 1954 feature film, Woman’s World, starring Clifton Webb, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Lauren Bacall, Fred MacMurray, Arlene Dahl and Cornel Wilde, was adapted. Other stories inspired episodes of Lux Video Theatre (1950) and The Ford Television Theatre (1952). Novels include Here Are My Children (1934), The Marriage (1958), The Company Girls (1965; with a great cheesy McGinnis cover), and Celia (1968). This House is Burning was her final novel. She died in 1991 in Monterey, California.
NOVELS
- This House is Burning (1978) | Buy this book
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
