Richard Estep is a very engaging writer with a fascination for the paranormal and ghosts. In this book he makes several visits to Villisca, Iowa, to research and ghost hunt at Axe Murder House where eight people were murdered in 1912.

The House has a reputation for being quite haunted, though the level and type of activity varies from day to day and person to person or group to group. Even Mr. Estep gets different results each time he visits, which says a lot about ghost hunting - it's never consistent.

To make the point obvious, though I doubt that was Mr. Estep's intent, he watches and discusses several different shows of other groups* who've visited the house through the years, each with unique results. I wondered if he was aware of the irony of that fact.

On the whole, this book is an interesting look into how history and the present interact in weird ways. The house itself is a sad place, a place that draws the morbidly curious and historian alike. Though there are theories and ideas about who the murderer was, most definitely a mass murderer (though not gone into much depth, there is discussion about a number similar crimes which were committed along railroad stops before and after Villisca), no one know who actually slipped into the house one night and took an axe to the two adults and six children who slept within or why.

On the whole, an interesting read.

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