Review: Lamp "No Present-Day author Creates Better Spine-Tingling Tales Than John Bellairs"

Book review: The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb

Halloween means scary stories told around the campfire or read by the fireplace on a dark, rainy night. And no present-day author creates better spine-tingling tales than John Bellairs. Some of his many popular titles are: The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull; The Mummy, the Will and the Crypt; The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost; and The Curse of the Blue Figurine (all Bantam paperbacks).

Bellairs’s latest hair-raiser is The Lamp from the Warlock’s Tomb (Dial). Like his earlier books, it features a youthful hero (tall, gangly Anthony Monday) aided by an eccentric older adult (librarian Myra Eells). They buy an old lamp from a woman. But the lamp is – you guessed it –cursed. Mysterious strangers begin following Anthony and Miss Eells, trying to claim the lamp and its deadly power. Anthony and Miss Eells have to battle the evil forces to save all of humanity – and just because they bought an old lamp.

Jon C. Halter
Boys’ Life, October 1988, p. 6