Thirteen year-old Anthony has one friend, the old librarian, Mrs. Eells. When she tells Anthony of her vacation plans, he begs to go too, so they meet up with Mrs. Eells brother, Emerson, at an island rental.
One stormy night, Anthony finds an old chest in an unused room and climbs in, as teens do, to find himself on the grounds of a spooky mansion. He enters and finds a meeting of sinister black-robed people who are discussing the destruction of Earth.
This has some real tension, and Bellairs books are always good. ( )

Anthony Monday is delighted when his friend Miss Eells and her brother Emerson invire him to spend summer vacation at an old house on a desolate island. But fun soon turns to terror when Anthony finds a trunk that ca transport the three of them to another world - a horrifying place where a maniacal group is plotting the destruction of the people of Earth.

This is the last item of Bellairs' juvenilia that I intend to read, since I have followed up each of the three series until the final book written exclusively by him. These books are not for adults. What could be their appeal to children? An ultimately safe world, with benevolent adults, and spooky chills, where one can anticipate that the evil is always defeated by the end of the book and that everybody will come out of it just fine, even though the forces rallied against evil are pretty unimpressive. Long langurous summer vacations. A New England or Midwestern essentially small town setting. A comfortable repetition of familiar events. In the Lewis Barnevelt series, Lewis's uncle and his friend Mrs. Zimmerman insult each other and play cards. In the Johnny Dixon series, the professor always bakes delicious cakes, which the two happily eat. In the Anthony Monday series, Miss Eels breaks something and her brother wears funny clothes and has gadgets.

An Anthony Monday book--cover. ( )

I felt that this wasn't up to Bellairs' usual standards, possibly because the villain is so crudely defined and has no obvious motive or rationale for his actions. ( )