The Doom of the Haunted Opera: A Lewis Barnavelt Book

by Brad Strickland and John Bellairs

Book Overview

When Lewis Barnavelt and Rose Rita Pottinger explore an abandoned theater, they discover an unpublished opera score. Ignoring a strange omen, they show it to their music teacher, who heralds The Day... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140376577
• ISBN13: 9780140376579
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Length: 153 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 8 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 7

Customer Reviews

The story

This book is actually based on a town. In fact its the one i live in. Their is an old opera house that is all run down and John Bellairs wrote a book about it. He also based "The House With the Clock in its Walls" off a Marshall house.

A good book for those into mystery, and horror stories.

I felt that this book really drew me into its plot. The evil man trying to produce this opera made me realize how charming and innocent people sound when you don't have all the pieces of their life story. It was also exciting to see Rose Rita, and Mrs. Jaeger coming together to thicken and enrich the plot. The only criticism is that there's not much of an epilogue at the end of this story.

This was a pretty good book

I have reviewed this book as 8. It was a great book but it needed a better ending. Rose Rita and Lewis go searching through a sealed up opera house when Lewis finds a lost piece of Music. Little did he know he was bring a evil ghost back to life to try to take over the world.

Very smooth transition from author to author

Brad Strickland must have faced a considerable task when he began the completion of John Bellair's books. For years, John's heroes of Anthony Monday, Johnny Dixon, Lewis Barnavelt and Rose Rita Pottinger kept the reader busy as they explored and fell into all sorts of settings and supernatural events. From the Windrow curse to the dark secret of Weatherend, the books that Bellairs wrote captivated me, and it certainly wasn't just because of the plot twists and ever-changing settings. Bellairs had a style of writing that made his books close to the reader, even with a setting in another time or even another dimension. Brad Strickland has proved that the transition from the now unfortunately late Bellairs to him is going smoothly. His Hand of the Necromancer did not fail as he went "solo", and neither does the Doom of the Haunted Opera, which was begun by Bellairs as a sketch and finished by Strickland. Our Lewis Barnavelt and Rose Rita are stuck in cozy (But boring) little New Zebedee, waiting for excitement. Discovering an old opera score, the excitement quickly comes when all adults in the town are swept up in the music rush. The composer of the opera's grandson comes to town, and it is quickly revealed that he has more interests with New Zebedee's inhabitants than just performing a dusty old work and setting up shop at the local Four Seasons Hotel. But unfortunately, pending the performance of an aria from the opera called "The Sealing", a mysterious fog has descended upon New Zebedee and trapped everyone inside it. And the sinister machinations of our dear villain (posing as the willing opera conducter, and world famous singer as well) go deeper and deeper... This book was very good; it provided the familiar characters fans of Bellairs' have grown to love yet produced a new predicament (the sealing off of the town, though this curiously resembles Lewis's imprisonment inside Barnavelt Manor in a previous Bellairs/Strickland novel, The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder) and a new villain. Certainly Brad Strickland has pulled it off; Doom of the Haunted Opera is true Bellairs, yet Strickland has also managed to add a little of his own flavor into the story without warping its style. Not as climactic and eerie as the Ghost in the Mirror (which I consider to be an incredible achievement) or as creepy as The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie, but very good. With the new books out, Bellairs' series have not died. Brad Strickland has managed to continue the Bellairs spirit, but also with something new.