The Hanging Hill

The Hanging Hill

Haunted Mysteries (#2)

by Chris Grabenstein

Random House, 2009

322 Pages

Middle Grade (8-12 and up)

Grabenstein’s second Haunted Mystery adventure finds Zach Jennings and his stepmother Judy McGruder-Jennings visiting The Hanging Hill Playhouse, the former site of just about everything evil you can think of, from hangings of the innocent to a vaudevillian accidental tragedy. This season, the players will be presenting Judy’s book, Curiosity Cat.

Meanwhile, an ancient secret society from Tunis has resurrected the spirit of the High Priest of Moloch (called Ba’al Hammon in Carthage, where the cult is from,) within the body of the play’s director, Reginald Grimes.

As soon as they arrive, Zack finds two friends in Meghan McKenna & Derek Stone, both actors about his age recruited for the play. Then the haunting begins. We discover that “The Hanging Hill” that the playhouse is built on was cursed by the father of a Native American ‘princess’ unjustly executed for corn thievery, and whose echo still hangs in the elevator of the Playhouse. There are other ghosts, too: a juggling girl, obviously once a performer, and “The Others,” not-so-benign spirits such as a pilgrim who wanders the halls at night.

Another laugh. No, a howl. This time it came from a man. From below. “The Devil led me on!” A raw voice rang out. Now Zach heard plodding footsteps. Someone was climbing the staircase –behind them!

As the story progresses, it seems the ancient sect and its high priest are in need of a sacrifice in order to allow the spirit of their ancient god to cross the threshold into this world. Killing children is a far cry from getting the Ghostbusters’ Key Master and Gate-Keeper together, but just such a sacrifice is their ultimate goal. And this isn’t the first time it has been attempted. The last time, in 1939, necromancer Nicholas Nicodemus made Wilbur Kimble recite a magic chant, then young Wilbur and his sister were thrown to the fire.

Now, with help of famous actor Bartholomew Buckingham (reminiscent of Errol Flynn,) and Justus Willowmeir III, (who transformed Ye Hanging Hill Publick House into an entertainment emporium,) Zach, Meghan, and Derek piece together the puzzle of the Playhouse. Searching for a way to foil the Brotherhood of Hannibal sect’s insane plot, they do their best to avoid the terror of the evil spirits raised by Hakeem and his helpers (who trick Grimes into reciting from the Book of Ba’al,) while they also confront the resident ghosts of the Playhouse.

Beware Pandemonium!

Zach is again pursued by his old friend Mad Dog Murphy, a bank robber and murderer from 1959, but this time Mad Dog is joined by Diamond Mike Butler– the Butcher of Bleeker Street, and the Lizzy Borden-like Lily Pruett and they are gaining increasing influence over the living world the closer the sect comes to opening of the portal. Yes, it’s more lunatics opening the gateway for the coming of the Great Old Ones, but it works comfortably as the backdrop in this story.

“Aya. That’s how the ritual works. It’s a swap, see? Two innocents for a legion of the damned.”

The ritual to open the portal and invoke the resurrection of Moloch and an army of the evil dead begins. Derek has been tricked into reciting the magic words. The fire rises.

“My brothers, prepare for Pandemonium!” Meghan knew what that meant. They were going to reestablish the capital city of Hell!

The ending marks a sudden change in the pace of the book as its enthralling mystery turns to slapstick comedy. The statue of Moloch starts to talk like a shtick Frankenstein’s Monster: “Have girls, feed me boy!” and Laurel and Hardy antics include ghost fireworks with people getting bottle-rockets in the bottom. There is both a beheading and a remote control truck zipping around as the author dives head-first into extremes of both terror and humor.

As always, Grabenstein gives us an entertaining story and characters we can relate to. You can feel the hollowness of the old theater house, and some of the ghostly images would be truly nightmarish if not balanced with the book’s lighthearted tone.

One of the best things about this book is that Zach’s real mother makes an appearance, a ghost, expressing her love for him by leading him to a clue, when in the previous book Zach had felt that her only true feelings towards him were a bitter resentment and blame for her miserable lot in life. In this book and again in the following Haunted Mysteries, The Smoky Corridor and The Black Heart Crypt, Zack remembers the gut wrenching behavior of his mom after she became sick and wasn’t the person, in turns out, even she wanted to be.