The Chessmen of Doom

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 (The New York Times).

John Bellairs is beloved as a master of Gothic young adult novels and fantasies. His series about the adventures of Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle Jonathan, which includes The House with a Clock in Its Walls, is a classic. He also wrote a series of novels featuring the character Johnny Dixon. Among the titles in that series are The Curse of the Blue Figurine; The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt; and The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull. His stand-alone novel The Face in the Frost is also regarded as a fantasy classic, and among his earlier works are St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies and The Pedant and the Shuffly.

Bellairs was a prolific writer, publishing more than a dozen novels before his untimely death in 1991.