The Curse of the Blue Figurine

A boy sneaks into an old church to confront a mad ghost in this adventure by the author of The House with a Clock in Its Walls
 
It’s the 1950s when Johnny Dixon’s mother dies, his father goes to fight in the Korean War, and he goes to live with his grandparents. Although life in a new house is strange, Johnny’s “Grampa” listens to his favorite ballgames, takes him on long walks, and tells him stories of the strange mysteries that lurk in the shadows. Best of all, he’s friends with Professor Childermass, an eccentric academic who’s about to take Johnny on the adventure of a lifetime.
 
When the professor learns Johnny loves ghost stories, he tells the  boy the spookiest legend in Duston Heights, Massachusetts—the tale of the haunted church on the edge of town, with demonic carvings on its altar, and the troubled spirit of mad Father Baart, who is said to have killed two people before vanishing long ago. With the professor as his guide, Johnny sets out on a quest that will put him face-to-face with the crazy, long-dead priest.
 
The first book in the delightful Johnny Dixon series by the author who provides “suspense and action aplenty” (Booklist), The Curse of the Blue Figurine is a good old-fashioned Gothic adventure.

John Bellairs is beloved as a master of Gothic young adult novels and fantasies. His series about the adventures of Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle Jonathan, which includes The House with a Clock in Its Walls, is a classic. He also wrote a series of novels featuring the character Johnny Dixon. Among the titles in that series are The Curse of the Blue Figurine; The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt; and The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull. His stand-alone novel The Face in the Frost is also regarded as a fantasy classic, and among his earlier works are St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies and The Pedant and the Shuffly.

Bellairs was a prolific writer, publishing more than a dozen novels before his untimely death in 1991.