Justice for Julie: A Story of the Supernatural

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

In Justice for Julie, Lane returns to themes she introduced in her first
young-adult novel, Daddy’s Back! (1991), especially those relating to
communications between the living and the dead and the fight between
good and evil. When Newfoundlander Jennifer Foster, 16, sustains a head
injury in an accident, doctors predict a quick recovery, but the girl
remains unconscious for three weeks. Upon awakening from her deathlike
sleep, Jennifer identifies herself as someone called Julie who lives in
a foster home and believes the date to be September 14, 1990, not 1991.
The following day, Jennifer is “herself” again and shortly returns
home.

Three “happenings” then occur that propel Jennifer into the midst
of a murder. Over four nights, she experiences an identical dream in
which she witnesses an older man fatally pushing a girl over a cliff.
Each night the girl’s voice entreats, “Jennifer, tell them that I
didn’t kill myself. Tell them he pushed me.” Inside her secured
school locker, Jennifer finds “Justice for Julie!” written in her
own lipstick. Finally, in her bedroom mirror, Jennifer sees a vision of
a girl being sexually abused and hears the girl say, “Read the
newspapers.” With boyfriend Zack’s and best-friend Chris’s
assistance, Jennifer researches old newspapers and discovers that Julie
Marie Westgate, 16, a foster child in the Al Trask home, had died,
apparently by suicide, a year previously. Jennifer assumes the task of
seeking justice for Julie, but gradually her quest provokes an exacting
vengeance from Trask, putting not just Jennifer’s life but her soul
and Julie’s at eternal risk.

Instead of the subtitle, “A Story of the Supernatural,” Lane could
have simply said, “A Spooky Story,” for this “scary” book will
truly send chills up readers’ spines. As in Daddy’s Back! Lane
introduces the psychic Miss Emily and her spirit guide Kaza to advance
the plot, but this time the means of their insertion into the story is
somewhat awkward. Nevertheless, Justice for Julie, with its short,
fast-paced chapters, remains a good alternative for middle- and
senior-school Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine fans.