It seems only appropriate that death has not brought an end to Bellairs's career; and, happily, this posthumous collaboration has less of a thrown-together feel than his last few books. Having lost most of her magic in The Letter, The Witch and The Ring (1977), Florence Zimmerman travels back in time to recover it, taking along her friend Rose Rita Pottinger (14). Together, the two rescue a Pennsylvania Dutch family from an evil sorcerer, uncover an old chest of Revolutionary War gold, and activate a crystal ball that restores Mrs. Zimmerman's powers--not, of course, without negotiating plenty of cryptic instructions, apparitions, lurking evils, spells, and narrow escapes, plus a slavering demon or two. Though the deliciously ghastly climax suddenly comes to a halt so that the sorcerer can rehearse his motives and life story, the plot generally develops in a smooth and coherent fashion, driven along by a pair of active female characters. Still more stories are to come. (Fiction. 10-12)
