In light of the recent Harry Potter craze, I started re-reading a few of [Bellairs' books] recently. This one is one of the few I hadn't read before. I was surprised to note that the copyright date on this one is 1989, given that, like all the books, it's set sometime in the Fifties (the protagonist of this particular series, Johnny Dixon, lives with his grandparents because his father's a pilot in the Korean War). It's not my favorite series in the set (I like the Lewis Barnavelt books better), and it's not a stunningly good example from this particular series, but it's a fairly solid piece of work. The writing is pitched right about at the level of the first Harry Potter book, the setting is well sketched out, and the supernatural menace is, well, supernatural and menacing.
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