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Terror By Night

PFTerrorNight

Terror By Night by Vic Crume, 1971.

This book is part of the Partridge Family book series, based on the The Partridge Family tv show.

Shirley has been thinking that she and her children could use a vacation, and her family band’s manager, Reuben Kinkaid, suggests a place where they could have a little vacation and do some rehearsing.  Reuben arranges for the family to rent a large house with several acres of land attached in a small New England town not far from Salem, Massachusetts.  That should have been their first clue.  That, and the fact that the town’s name is Haunt Port.

At first, the Partridges are just thinking about how they can rehearse without disturbing anyone on such a big place, and Danny and Chris want to try camping out.  However, when they arrive in town, they learn that the name of the house they’ve rented is Witch’s Hollow and that it’s close to a place called Hangman’s Hill.  Soon after the family arrives at the house, Keith and Laurie also find a dummy hanging from a tree with a note that says, “Welcome! The Hangman.”  It’s pretty disturbing, but Keith and Laurie decide to hide the dummy and not scare the others.  They don’t know who is behind this awful joke, but they don’t want to give that person the satisfaction of seeing them react to it.

However, the disturbing things don’t end there.  The family’s dog, Simone disappears.  Also, people in town seem to have a strange attitude toward the house’s cook/housekeeper, Mrs. Judbury, and her daughter, Prudence.  Prudence is sullen and anti-social with a habit of catching toads for fun.  Keith has to admit that he can see how Prudence might have gotten a reputation for being a witch, but there’s more behind the strange happenings at Witch’s Hollow than that.

Simone eventually returns, although it’s clear that she’s frightened and hasn’t been fed well, and Mrs. Judbury tells the family the story of her family’s history in Haunt Port.  One of Mrs. Judbury’s husband’s ancestors was one of the accusers at the Salem witchcraft trials, but later, when people began to realize that they had executed innocent people, some of the accusers themselves found public opinion turning against them.  This ancestor decided to leave Salem and go to Judbury Port (the old name for Haunt Port) because he had family there, but he and his wife were never really accepted there, either.  This man later hanged himself in despair (at the place called Hangman’s Hill), and his wife later died alone, also shunned by the town.  Although some of the townspeople might feel bad about how things ended up with the Judburys, the old uneasy feelings about the family have remained, and Prudence’s stand-offish attitude, combined with her mother’s apparent psychic premonitions, has fueled some of the old stories.

At one point, Keith tells Prudence that he knows why she acts the way she does, because it’s much easier for her to keep her distance from people and behave strangely than it is for her to try to learn to get along with them and make friends.  Prudence isn’t responsible for what the townspeople did in the past, but she isn’t helping things in the present.  Jane Parsons, whose family owns the local store, also helps in a way because she and Prudence are cousins, and Prudence joins her in welcoming a cousin of their and his friend when they visit town.  As Prudence becomes friendlier, she and her mother become allies in trying to figure out the mysteries of Witch’s Hollow, which turn out to have less to do with past wrongs than current crimes.

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

Posted on by TracyC

The Haunted Hall

The Partridge Family

PFHauntedHall#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.