Chessmen of Doom ANNOTATION
Johnny Dixon, Fergie and Professor Childermass comply with a strange will left by the Professor's brother, which requires them to spend the summer at a desolate estate where they encounter a madman bent on destroying the world.
FROM THE CRITICS
Children's Literature - Childrens Literature
To inherit his brother's estate, Professor Childermas must spend the summer at his late brother's mansion and untangle a mysterious riddle. With Johnny Dixon and his friend Fergie for companions, he settles into the gloomy, dusty house. Theirs is not to be a pleasant stay. From the beginning, lights appear in a closed up tower room, Johnny is visited by a ghostly apparition, and statues are broken revealing human skulls inside. In the night sky, comets are seen streaking and violent storms appear out of nowhere. Could it all be connected with the strange mustached man and his grotesque chess set? The Professor and the boys work against time to unravel the riddle before the evil wizard unleashes his plan to control the earth. The right blend of chilling atmosphere combined with a malevolent villain will keep readers turning the pages. The denouement seems abrupt and the epilogue unnecessary, but true Bellairs fans will no doubt find this a gripping mystery. 2000, Puffin Books, Ages 9 to 12, $4.99. Reviewer: Beverley Fahey
School Library Journal
Gr 4-6-- Professor Childermass and his young friends Johnny and Fergie are swept up in a madman's plot to rule the Earth in this latest addition to the series. Childermass stands to inherit his brother Peregrine's multimillion dollar estate, but only if he can stay on the estate all summer, plus interpret a cryptic rhyme. As usual, Bellairs salts the story with apparitions, vague warnings, deep forebodings, magic effects, tombs, corpses, and the like. The Bad Guy, Edmund Stallybrass, outwits Childermass and the boys at every turn, and finally locks them up in a burial vault and leaves them to die. Enter Crazy Annie, a local witch, who opens the vault, then in the climactic scene, confronts and kills Stallybrass in a wild play of spells and counterspells. Johnny, Fergie, and the professor don't have much to do here except rush about and explain to readers what's happening. The elements of plot and character are slapped together in an arbitrary, disjointed way that leaves plenty of unanswered questions and gaps in logic. A perfunctory outing from an author who has done much better in the past. --John Peters, New York Public Library
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