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Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (book)

The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure

Introduction

Don’t read this – unless you’ve never met Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews before. Those young friends of mine make up the detective firm called The Three Investigators. Their motto is “We Investigate Anything.” In the case you’re about to begin, the boys get involved in a baffling museum robbery, help out a woman troubled by a bad case of gnomes and find themselves on the way to the Middle East to become slaves, to hint at just a few of their hair-raising exploits.

If you’ve read any of their previous cases, of course, you know about The Three Investigators. You know that Jupiter, the First Investigator, is stocky if not fat. But there’s nothing sluggish about Jupe’s mind –– his keen deductions rival any professional’s, and I should know, since I was once a private eye myself. You’re also aware that the Second Investigator, Pete Crenshaw, is tall and muscular. He takes on many of the physical risks of the boys’ investigations. And you know that Bob is in charge of records and research. He’s smaller than the other boys and is a whiz at scaring up background information at the local library where he works part-time.

If you’ve read any of the boys’ other cases, you know that their Headquarters is a carefully hidden mobile home in the super-junkyard called The Jones Salvage Yard. That amazing emporium is owned by Mathilda and Titus Jones, Jupiter’s aunt and uncle, with whom he lives. Headquarters can be entered by hidden tunnels and passageways that only the boys know about.

And lastly, you know that Jupiter, Pete and Bob all live in Rocky Beach, California, a town on the Pacific Coast not far from Hollywood. That’s about everything you need to know for the moment. But keep alert — The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure is about to unfold.

Alfred Hitchcock

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