The Chessmen of Doom, John Bellairs
The Chessmen of Doom, John Bellairs
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The Chessmen of Doom

Author: John Bellairs

Narrator: Johnny Heller

Unabridged: 3 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/15/2022


Synopsis

In a thrilling adventure, a young sleuth and his professor friend are challenged to solve a riddle and win a fortune.Professor Roderick Childermass may be the strangest person Johnny Dixon has ever met, but compared to his brother Peregrine, the professor is practically normal. Peregrine is a born trickster, and when he knows his death is near, he sends a letter promising the professor his entire $10,000,000 estate—assuming he can solve one final riddle. The professor feels that his brother is mocking him from beyond the grave. If Peregrine were alive, he says, he’d kill him.To crack the puzzle and claim the fortune, Johnny and the professor head north to the wild countryside of far-off Maine. They’ll find that the riddle is the least of their problems. To inherit the money, the professor must stay alive until the end of the summer, and since everyone in Maine seems to want Peregrine’s heir dead, survival will be no easy task.From the author of the Lewis Barnavelt novels, including The House with a Clock in Its Walls, the Johnny Dixon series is full of fun, adventure, and supernatural chills, along with “believable and likable characters” who are a delight to spend time with ( New York Times).

About John Bellairs

John Bellairs (1938–1991) was beloved as a master of Gothic young adult and fantasy novels. His stand-alone novel The Face in the Frost is regarded as a fantasy classic. He published more than twenty novels in the Anthony Monday, Johnny Dixon, and Lewis Barnavelt series.

About Johnny Heller

Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Calista

This book has the magic. It was so good. It is set in Maine at a big mansion in the middle of nowhere. Johnny, the professor and Fergie need to spend the summer at this mansion so the professor can inherit it from his brother. Sounds like a nice summer to everyone. It is not so easy as all that. I lo......more

Goodreads review by Greg

After a slight genre misstep in volume 6, "The Chessmen of Doom" restores the Johnny Dixon series to its oddball gothic glory, complete with necromancy, elaborate tombs and moldering New England architectural follies. To an extent, Bellairs has gotten in over his head here: so many of the rococo det......more

Goodreads review by Summer

Last book of 2007! John Bellairs's Johnny Dixon books are notable not just for being above-average gothic horror for young folks, but also because older editions have some absolutely terrifying Edward Gorey covers and frontspieces. The stories don't creep me out as much as they did when I was a kid,......more

One of my favorites from John's work! a perfect summer read.......more


Quotes

“Thanks to the professor and Johnny, it's not the end of the world.” Kirkus Reviews

“Professor Childermass and his young friends Johnny and Fergie are swept up in a madman's plot to rule the Earth…Bellairs salts the story with apparitions, vague warnings, deep forebodings, magic effects, tombs, corpses, and the like.” School Library Journal