11/11/15

Treasure and Treachery


"Not a problem... we do this kind of stuff all the time."
- Jonny Quest (The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest)
Robert Arthur was one of those prolific and versatile writers who participated in many different genres, which included detective stories, speculative fiction and radio plays, but I know him primarily from a handful of wonderful short stories such as "The Glass Bridge" and "The 51st Sealed Room" – collected respectively in Mystery and More Mystery (1966) and Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries (1982). Surprisingly, however, is the fact that Arthur's name has not entirely faded from the memory of the general public. 

It's true that the short pieces of fiction Arthur wrote for the popular magazines of the past have fallen into obscurity, but the contributions made to a long-running series of mystery novels for younger readers are still avidly read to this day. Some of those books were even turned into movies during the 2000s.

Arthur wrote ten of the forty-three books published about The Three Investigators, which originally appeared under the title Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The Secret of Terror Castle (1964) was first entry in the series and the books would continue to appear until the 1990s, but the general opinion seems to favor the early period when Arthur was in charge of the boy detectives.  

So, as a fan of Case Closed, I wanted to give The Three Investigators a shot and Mike Grost had mentioned one of the books, The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), on his extensive website on detective-fiction – which made it very, very easy to pick a title. It was already narrowed down to ten titles, but this basically narrowed it down to one. 

The Secret of Skeleton Island has a short introduction, entitled "A Word from Alfred Hitchcock," in which the series and characters are briefly outlined for the benefit of those who missed out on The Three Investigators when they were the "appropriate" age to read them. Hitchcock himself appears in the opening-and closing chapter of the book as sends the trio on a mission and hears who they managed to solve the case. 

Well, they are introduced as follow: Jupiter "Jupe" Jones is the First Investigators and described as "the brains of the firm." He's basically the Nero Wolfe to the other two's Archie Goodwin. Peter Crenshaw, the Second Investigator, is a tall, muscular boy who "excels at athletics" and could be seen as the legman of the group. The Third Investigator is Bob Andrews, "the most studious of the three," who's in charge of Records and Research. 

In the opening chapter of the book, Hitchcock tells them Bob's father is working as a movie technician on a suspense picture called Chase Me Faster, but the final location of the shoot is plagued by a series of thefts and vandalism – as well as a possible haunting. 

The location is a small island in the Atlantic Bay, down on the Southeast coast of the United States, where the movie company is rebuilding an old, abandoned amusement park for the final scene of the movie.

Skeleton Island is the name of the place and has a long, haunted history that stretched back before its discovery in 1565 by an English captain, which is backed up by the bones that are still uncovered in its sands and the occasional gold doubloon washing up on the beach. The Spanish doubloons are a remnant of a lost treasure, scattered over the ocean floor by a notorious buccaneer, named Captain One-Ear, in 1717 when "British troops had made a surprise attack on his quarters" on the island and was cornered in his longboat. However, there's a good explanation, accompanied by a splendid clue, as to what really happened to the golden doubloons. Granted, the doubloons are only a small plot-point and somewhat of a side-distraction, but I enjoyed this part and the clue was wonderful. 

The obligatory spot of danger
Anyhow, Jupe, Peter and Bob were supposed to discreetly enquire about the thefts as undercover agents of the movie company, because who would suspect a bunch of kids of being meddlesome detectives? Well, apparently, just about everybody. The man who picks them up from the air-port, a Mr. Robinson, mockingly identifies them as "the three kid detectives from Hollywood" and "accidentally" strands them on a small island during a thunderstorm. 

It's during this night they see the phantom of the abandoned amusement park riding one of the old, worn horses of the merry-go-round. According to the local legend, it's the ghost of a lovely, but headstrong, woman who was riding the same merry-go-round twenty-five years previously when a sudden storm had blown up, but she wanted to finish her ride and was struck by lightening – and her ghost has been seen riding the merry-go-round ever since. 

However, more importantly, is that they meet Christos "Chris" Markos that very same night. A young boy from Greece who sails around the island in his small boat, searching for treasure, in order to help his father – a sponge diver who fell ill. Locals aren't very fond of Chris, suspecting him of being the thief, and the only one who really seems to believe him are Jupe, Peter and Bob. 

They'll be sharing some very, very tight spots over the course of this mystery/adventure story, both above and beneath the surface, before they can bring the case to a satisfying close and report back to Alfred Hitchcock. The overall plot was much better than I expected from a juvenile mystery novel and could be compared with Scooby-Doo or the 90s version of Jonny Quest, if they had better plots or were written as straight adventure/detective stories. I mean, I figured out the solution, but never expected this kind of pure misdirection (simplified as it was) in a book targeted at children. 

I also think we owe a debt of gratitude to Robert Arthur for the survival of the classically-styled detective story after the 1960s, because I think these book indoctrinated quite a few kids into seeking out more mysteries. Wait... did I say indoctrination? What I meant to say was brainwashing. No. Wait! Hold on for a moment. Not brainwashing. Remember, English isn't my first language. I sometimes confuse certain words. The word I'm looking for is... uh... conditioning? Why is the ghost of Fredric Wertham screaming at me that I just proved him right? 

Anyhow, I enjoyed The Secret of Skeleton Island and I wish I could feel nostalgic about it as well for the complete experience, but it was only my first encounter with The Three Investigators. However, it probably won't be the last. 
Finally, allow me to refer you to the review I posted yesterday of Craig Rice's zany The Big Midget Murders (1942) and I'll probably be back with another review before long. 

22 comments:

  1. These were my favourite books back in the mid-1980s when I was about ten or eleven. Luckily my local library had all the investigator books as well as the young adult anthologies Arthur edited under the pseudonym Alfred Hitchcock. I also particularly liked his short stories & fondly recall "Obstinate Uncle Otis." I've managed to locate some of these but haven't been able to get my hands on any of his own collections. It's nice to see reviews of such titles that send me longing for my childhood.
    Frank

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  2. These were my favourite books back in the mid-1980s when I was about ten or eleven. Luckily my local library had all the investigator books as well as the young adult anthologies Arthur edited under the pseudonym Alfred Hitchcock. I also particularly liked his short stories & fondly recall "Obstinate Uncle Otis." I've managed to locate some of these but haven't been able to get my hands on any of his own collections. It's nice to see reviews of such titles that send me longing for my childhood.
    Frank

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    1. I'm glad to have brought about a bout of nostalgia for you.

      You might be interested in the Robert Arthur's stories that are collected in Mysteries and More Mysteries, which are Golden Age mystery-style stories written for teenage readers and they're really good. There's also a collection entitled Ghosts and More Ghosts, but never read that one.

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  3. I'd like to try some of these, but have had trouble finding them.

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    1. Well, there's someone on the GA group who offered several of them for sale. You can find this person's offer here.

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  4. I remember The Three Investigators, but ohhhhh, so long ago! And ohhhhh would I love to go back.

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    1. You've a better excuse to read them than I have, because I (alas) never grew up reading them. So I'd say go for it. A bit of nostalgia is part of the spice of life, you know.

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  5. I think I probably owe a lot of my early interest in mysteries to this series. People were always talking up Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but they couldn't compare in my eyes to these guys. I suppose I should check out those short stories.

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    1. You should check out those short stories. Most of the stuff in Mysteries and More Mysteries is excellent.

      I knew this series was responsible for some converts!

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  6. The Three Investigators are still great. I re-read them all last year and most of them held up very well. I'm glad I kept them in a box in the attic for more than a decade and didn't sell them off when I moved out of my parents' house.

    I'd agree that Robert Arthur's contributions are probably the best of the bunch, but there are many gems sprinkled throughout the series, and there are not many disappointments. I'd recommend "Stuttering Parrot", "Screaming Clock", "Dead Man's Riddle" and maybe "Phantom Lake".

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    1. Thanks for your recommendations, Christian. I'll definitely return to this series and in particular to the ones penned by Robert Arthur.

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  7. Hah! I remember reading one of these. I think. Maybe. I dunno. I recall that there was something about astral projection and a missing dog statue, and there might have been a Carr reference? I think, it might have been a different book, but hey! Might be worth looking into.

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    1. The Mystery of the Invisible Dog seems to fit your description:

      "The boys are contacted to investigate a young man's ability to be in two places at the same time and get involved in the theft of a crystal statue of a Carpathian hound."

      Sounds interesting! I remember reading, somewhere, there was a book in this series referencing a JDC story, which had to do with a very specific vanishing trick. I'm pretty sure now it must be Invisible Dog, because the statue is made of crystal. If you know your Carr, you know what I mean.

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  9. Hahaha, maybe instead of "indoctrination" you could say "priming." By the way, I read somewhere that even the introductions attributed to Hitchcock were actually written by Robert Arthur.

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    1. Yes! That was the word I was looking for. Uh, priming. It's a word you easily confuse with indoctrination.

      I'm sure even those introductions were fictional. Hitchcock's involvement in this series was in name only. After he passed away, his character was replaced by a completely fictional character.

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  10. Superb series - and a great review here. I fell in love with the series in the late 70s (the UK editions were published a couple of years after the US ones) and have been a huge fan ever since.

    You might like this - http://markwestwriter.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/nostalgic-for-my-childhood-three.html

    The introductions were written by the writer of the book - Hitchcock only lent his name. He apparently got all income from the foreign editions, though he later agreed to split that 50/50 with Robert Arthur.

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    1. Thanks for the link, Mark. I might have to return to this series, sooner than planned, after reading that blog-post!

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  11. You're welcome - I hope you do return to them and enjoy more. I've done a few posts about the series, then I tried to put together my all-time top 10 too! :)

    http://markwestwriter.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/my-three-investigators-all-time-top-10.html

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    1. You clinched it for me: my next T3 novel is going The Mystery of the Invisible Dog. It was already on my radar for its connection to a John Dickson Carr story.

      I will also mention your posts in my review, but I first have a couple of other blog-posts to get out of the way.

      Thanks once again for the info.

      By the way, is The Secret of Shark Reef any good?

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  12. Excellent, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

    Shark Reef is good, I'm reading that later this year and it's the last to be written whilst Hitchcock was alive. They started up with Hector Sebastien after this and I never got into those books.

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