The Partridge Family

#2 The Haunted Hall by Michael Avallone, 1970.

The Partridge Family will be performing at the Larkland Rock Festival, which is great because, not only was their presence specially requested by the governor of the state, but Laurie will get the chance to meet her crush, fellow rock singer Jerry Jingo.  There is a catch, though.  Instead of arranging for the family to stay in a hotel, Reuben has rented an old mansion outside of town for them. 

Shirley isn’t thrilled about the accommodations because it sounds like a lot of extra work with no one to do the cooking and cleaning for them, but Reuben promises that he will arrange for a housekeeper, cook, and chauffer.  When Shirley asks Reuben about the owner of the house, Reuben says that the owner, J. Watterson Trumbull, doesn’t live there.  In fact, he is currently living in a sanitarium because he’s an incurable firebug.  That bit of disturbing news doesn’t daunt Shirley, though.  Reuben finally wins her over to the idea of staying in this nice, old mansion, and she even starts thinking that it might be fun.

Unfortunately, due to a mix-up at Reuben’s office, there are no servants waiting for the Partridge Family when they arrive at the Turnbull mansion.  The only person they find there is a young man named Duke, who says that he is the caretaker.  When Shirley asks him if Reuben contacted him about the family staying there, he says that he hasn’t heard anything from anyone because the phone is out.  However, he welcomes the Partridges in.  There aren’t many provisions at the house, so they make do with some canned soup for dinner.  There are plenty of beds, and bedding, though.  Laurie thinks that Duke is handsome, but the house is creepy.  She says that it reminds her of the Collins House from the Dark Shadows tv show.  Duke tells the family more about the house’s firebug owner and that the house is called Satan Hall (a detail which Reuben had not mentioned before).

All in Satan Hall is not what it seems.  On their first night there, Laurie hears crazy laughter coming from somewhere.  Duke is also not what he appears to be.  It’s soon revealed that he is not the caretaker, but he and his friends are rock music fans, squatting in what they thought was an abandoned house while they were on their way to the rock festival.  They’re worried about the family discovering the truth.  Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the people in the house, J. Watterson Turnbull has escaped from the sanitarium and is on his way home to stage what he hopes will be his biggest fire yet!

This story, while somewhat spooky, isn’t quite as mysterious as some of the other mysteries in this series because the reader ends up knowing the truth about Duke and that Turnbull has escaped before the Partridge Family figures it out.  Really, I thought that Duke and his friends didn’t behave very realistically.  When the Partridges moved into the house, most of Duke’s friends hid upstairs, in the attic, while he covered for them as the “caretaker.”  However, being rock fans on their way to the very festival where the Partridges would be performing and realizing that the Partridges were in need of help, I’m surprised that he didn’t just explain their circumstances, that they were looking for a place to stay and just happened to seek shelter there, and maybe apply for a job working for the Partridges during their stay.  It would have been a fairly easy way to earn a little extra cash doing some household chores or running errands for the family, it would have justified their stay in the house, and they would have gotten to brag about staying in a mansion with a rock group.  Instead, they try to hide and be mysterious.

However, the youths hiding in the attic are not responsible for some of the other strange things about the house.  Besides being a firebug, Turnbull also created some special illusions in different rooms in order to give guests a scare.  Before the end of the story, Turnbull does burn down the mansions (something he ends up regretting, although fortunately, no one gets hurt).  However, he does develop a new interest in music, which the sanitarium hopes will help take his mind off of fire.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.