In the novel Ghostbusters, it is explained that Partridge Whistle was sixty years old when he died, one of the longest-lived of the Zagrama clan.

Partridge Whistle is Shirley Young's grandfather, the last mountain-moving Taoist, a descendant of the Zagrama tribe, the descendants of the Zagrama tribe are subject to the curse of the Ghost Cave tribe, all of them can not live to thirty years old, when the curse is fulfilled, the blood will turn golden solidified resulting in human death.

This blood disease is very rare, thousands of years later, to the developed medical conditions of modern society, still can not be cured and control, the curse is fulfilled when the human blood iron will be a large number of disappearance and can not be replenished.

Partridge Whistle's daughter in less than thirty years old died because of this disease, had given up looking for dust beads to break the curse of Partridge Whistle can only teach his granddaughter to touch the gold lieutenant's skills, hoping that she can find dust beads to break the curse.

Because the farther away from the bottomless ghost hole, the curse will be fulfilled the later, Partridge Whistle went to the United States, the body is strong, so it was able to live to sixty years old. But not everyone is able to do so, some will still die early.