The Mystery Of The Talking Skull, by Robert Arthur

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published and, to celebrate, I re-read and compiled my all-time Top 10 (safe in the knowledge that it would be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I posted my list here, having previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here).

Following this, I decided to re-visit some of the books I'd missed on that second read-through, without any intention of posting reviews of them but, as if often the way, it didn't quite work out like that.  Happily, this is on-going and so here's an additional review...

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed in 1970 and never reprinted), cover art by Roger Hall

Excitedly they searched the old chest.  Jupiter was sure they would find a vital clue from the post.  Suddenly Bob exclaimed: "Look!  Under that purple cloth!"  Before them lay a gleaming white skull...

There are surprises for The Three Investigators when they buy an antique trunk.  For its spooky contents lead them on a thrilling treasure hunt - and into the middle of a sinister plot...

illustration from the Collins/Armada editions,
by Roger Hall
The boys meets with Chief Reynolds in his office (the
only time we see him in the whole series, I think)

Jupiter Jones decides to visit an auction and, whilst there, purchases an old trunk for one dollar.  It turns out to have once belonged to a magician named The Great Gulliver, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances (following a bank robbery he was innocently mixed up in) and now his trunk is attracting a lot of interest, from gypsies, fellow conjurors and some unpleasant thugs.  When the boys find the set piece of Gullivers act, a talking skull called Socrates, it leads them to several clues and a race against time to find the stolen money before it is lost forever.

This was the last Three Investigator book written by the series creator Robert Arthur (he passed away in May 1969, the year this was published) and is a fitting tribute to him.  Playing on a similar, smaller canvas as his previous title, The Mystery Of The Screaming Clock, this works well and there’s a nice, nostalgic atmosphere to the whole thing.  It sticks close to home - a lot of the action takes place in the Jones Junkyard - but when the book ventures into Los Angeles, it’s to the more rundown areas of the city (“…everything needed paint and repair.  The few people on the street were quite old.  It seemed to be a street where elderly people with small incomes lived”).  This tinge of melancholy is echoed when the boys are on the trail of the money, with a house “that moves”, where Arthur bemoans the fact that old neighbourhoods are being torn down to make way for yet more freeways.

Characterisation, as ever, is spot on with some good repartee between the boys and it’s nice to see Uncle Titus play a much larger role than usual (Aunt Mathilda’s involved too).  Of the supporting cast, Chief Reynolds has a good part (and a nice counterpoint in his stand-in, Lieutenant Carter, who wants nothing to do with the boys) and the criminal gang - Three-Finger Munger and his associates Leo The Knife and Babyface Benson - are played admirably straight.  There’s also a nice nod to The Secret Of Terror Castle with Zelda the gypsy (though in that book, Zelda was comrade-in-arms to Gypsy Kate).  As with all Arthur stories, the mystery is solid and well-thought out and although there are no Sherlock Holmes references this time, Jupiter does allude to a real book - Lord Chizelrigg's Missing Fortune, by Robert Barr - which is a nice touch.  With a good pace, strong atmosphere and a wonderful use of location, this is a very enjoyable read and I’d highly recommend it.

I like both of the paperback covers Peter Archer produced (different angles of the same scene), particularly because they give us a view of the junkyard which - bearing in mind its importance as a location in the series - is rarely seen in the artwork.

Armada format a paperback (printed between 1973 and 1980), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

Armada format b paperback (printed between 1981 and 1983), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

Ten Favourite Covers: The Three Investigators

Regular readers of the blog will know I'm a big fan of The Three Investigators series (I wrote a Nostalgic post about them, on the 50th anniversary in 2014, which you can read here) and am an avid collector of the various editions.

Since they were published over a long period of time, the books appeared in different formats.  Format a, which was printed between 1970 and 1979, coincided with me becoming a fan but format b (printed between 1980 and 1985) were the editions in print when I started collecting and so, for various reasons, remain my favourite.  In all cases, the wonderful artwork was by Peter Archer and I thought it would be a perfect subject for my occasional Ten Favourite Covers thread.

I hope, if you were a fellow fan, you see a favourite of your own here too…

format a, printed between 1971-1980
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed 1980 (never reprinted)
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed 1982 (never reprinted)
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed between 1980-1985
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed between 1981-1983
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed between 1982-1983
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed between 1981-1982
I wrote about the book here

format a, printed between 1979-1980
I wrote about the book here

format a, printed (and reprinted) in 1980
I wrote about the book here

format b, printed between 1981-1982
I wrote about the book here

In December 2014, to help celebrate the 50th anniversary, I blogged my All Time Top 10 (which you can read here).

Back cover art from the format b paperbacks, by Peter Archer

Peter Archer was born in 1933 and in 1962 became part of the Collins pool of freelance and staff illustrators handling covers and internal artwork for their hardback and paperback books.  He worked on the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Three Investigators and Lone Pine Adventures, amongst many others and also contributed to Armada’s ‘Ghost Book’ series.

Primarily known later as one of the UK’s finest military painters, over the course of 40 years he was commissioned by many regiments and his work covered most major conflicts from Clive, East India Company 1757, right up to Afghanistan 2014, according to his official website.

Peter Archer passed away on 24th January 2018.  He’d been suffering with lung cancer.

My friend, Ian Regan (an enthusiastic and knowledgeable Three Investigator fan who, in addition to many other things, maintains the wonderful Cover Art Archive) was lucky enough to meet Mr Archer in 2017 and reported he was a very nice man who “found it extremely gratifying to discover that his work on children's books was still loved and adored all over the globe, almost forty years since that particular phase of his career ended. In his own words: "This is such fun!"”  Even better, Ian managed to get me Mr Archer’s autograph, in a copy of my favourite Three Investigators book.

See other Ten Favourite Cover posts here...
sources:
Ian Regan
The Three Investigator Cover Art Archive
Peter Archer Official website
Hardyboys.co.uk

The Mystery Of The Silver Spider, by Robert Arthur

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published and, to celebrate, I re-read and compiled my all-time Top 10 (safe in the knowledge that it would be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I posted my list here, having previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here).

Following this, I decided to re-visit some of the books I'd missed on that second read-through, without any intention of posting reviews of them but, as if often the way, it didn't quite work out like that.  Happily, this is on-going and so here's an additional review...

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed between 1969 and 1971), cover art by Roger Hall

Desperately The Three Investigators began to climb the rope.  Far below them, the city lights gleamed and the Denzo River swirled dark and swift in the night.  If they gave up now, they all knew what the guards would do to them.  Suddenly, before he could save himself, Bob's hand slipped and he fell backwards...

Jupe, Pete and Bob uncover a sinister plot when they visit Varania.  For evil forces are out to destroy the tiny country's young Prince and seize power.  But when the priceless Silver Spider goes missing, the boys know it's time for a speedy exit - before they end up in the local torture chamber...

illustration from the Collins/Armada editions,
by Roger Hall

On their way from a visit to Alfred Hitchcock (does this literally follow on directly from Fiery Eye?), the boys are almost involved in a car crash which is only averted due to the quick thinking of Worthington.  In the other car is young Prince Djaro, soon to be crowned ruler of the principality of Varania in Europe, who’s visiting the USA.  They boys quickly become friends and Djaro organises for them to spend the day at Disneyland where the lads discover all is not well in the kingdom.  After Djaro invites them to Varania, they’re visited by Bert Young, a US secret service agent, who wants them to help out.  It seems the Regent, Duke Stefan, has plans for Varania that are not only villainous but most definitely do not involve Prince Djaro.

The eighth Three Investigator book written by the series creator Robert Arthur, he has a lot of fun taking the boys out of Southern California and casting them into the kind of small European kingdom that feels a curious mixture of medieval and modern.  Taking full advantage of castles, dungeons, sewers, history and a rebellion, he clearly enjoys himself giving the boys CIA toys to play with (camera radios and mini-recorders) and the set pieces reflect that though I did miss the usual touch of melancholy Arthur often brought to his work.  The Silver Spider of the title is a small piece of sculpture that plays a very big part in both the book and the rituals of Varania and its disappearance drives the plot, while the resolution of it is very well played.

Characterisation, as always, is spot on and the boys have a good repartee, while Jupiter shows he perfectly understands how he’s sometimes perceived (but thankfully is okay with it) - “I don’t suppose you can call me exactly typical because some people think I’m conceited and use too many long words and sometimes get myself pretty well disliked.  But I can’t seem to change”.  Bob also has a decent part to play, with a couple of bumps to the head and a nice call-back to his injured leg.  There’s a larger supporting cast than usual, so those characters are painted in broader brushstrokes - Djaro, Rudy and Elena, who help them escape - while the villain of the piece, Duke Stefan, is quickly shown to be terrible with a great scene set in a torture chamber (and his plot is intriguingly dastardly).  The set pieces are all action - shinning up and down ropes, boating through cellars, chasing across squares and into church - and very well written with great pace.  A complaint might be that, on occasion, the boys feel like passengers in the adventure as their new friends organise escapes but having said that, it's Bob who hides the Silver Spider and Jupe who figures out how to call attention to Duke Stefan's scheming, so it balances out.  As an aside, at the accident, the boys had “just been to Hollywood to call on Alfred Hitchcock and give him the facts of their latest adventure” so does this happen directly after The Mystery Of The Fiery Eye?  With a cracking pace, an excellent sense of location and some great character work, I thoroughly enjoyed my read and would highly recommend the book.

Armada format a paperback (printed between 1972 and 1980), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

Armada format b paperback (printed in 1982 and never reprinted), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

The Mystery Of The Fiery Eye, by Robert Arthur

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published and, to celebrate, I re-read and compiled my all-time Top 10 (safe in the knowledge that it would be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I posted my list here, having previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here).

Following this, I decided to re-visit some of the books I'd missed on that second read-through, without any intention of posting reviews of them but, as if often the way, it didn't quite work out like that.  Happily, this is on-going and so here's an additional review...

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed between 1969 and 1971), cover art by Roger Hall

The Black Moustache Gang are after ‘The Fiery Eye’.  So are the Three Investigators and they manage to outwit the thieves, or so they think...  

But when Jupe holds the gem at last, four gunmen emerge from the darkness!  Black Moustache has caught up again...

illustration from the
Collins/Armada editions, by Roger Hall

At the suggestion of Alfred Hitchcock, The Three Investigators agree to help English lad August August (who’s called Gus by his friends) try and crack the riddle he’s been left by his great Uncle Horatio August.  Horatio (who Gus never met) went sailing on a ship to the South Seas and wasn’t seen again but now a lawyer has been in touch with the family, to pass on a letter he left for his great nephew.  As they try to figure out the riddle - it’s a race against time, since Horatio’s old house is being knocked down - the boys come into contact with ‘Three Dots’, Rama Sidri Rhandur of Pleshiwar in India and his sword cane, who is searching for The Fiery Eye, a fabulous ruby that was stolen from his temple.  They also come into contact with the Black Moustache gang, who appear to be on the trail of the jewel themselves.

This is the seventh book in the series by Robert Arthur and features the pay-off for the use of the Rolls Royce (“thirty days of twenty-four hours each”) which was set up in The Secret Of Terror Castle.  Pete points out that “the thirty days ran out while we were back East tangling with the mystery of Skeleton Island”, which means that the first six books took place in the space of a month!  The dilemma stumps the boys for a while but the resolution, mentioned in several of the books after this but not in detail, is nicely played.  In further continuity, there’s also mention of Blackbeard, who still appears to be in his cage in Headquarters.  The central mystery is convincing - Arthur wrote a good riddle - and the processes of detection are smartly made, with a couple of decent twists along the way.  Bob ends up at the library a couple of times, cutting him off from the action but he does end up discovering some clues and his Dad also helps out again.

Although a lot of the book takes place at The Jones Junkyard, it also encompasses Hollywood and Dial Canyon, just north of the city, which is atmospherically described and well used, especially after dark.  The book also briefly features a young called Liz Logan, who is desperate to be an investigator and thrilled to meet Bob.  Arthur clearly has fun writing her and, in an interview, his daughter Elizabeth confirmed that Liz is based on her.  I wish we’d seen more of Miss Logan, she certainly shows potential here.

The characterisation is as strong as ever from Arthur, with the menacing Three Dots balancing up the rougher Black Moustache gang (their horn-rimmed glasses and fake moustaches are pretty silly disguises) who are barely distinguishable other than by name.  The boys enjoy some good interplay, though with less humour than usual, Hans & Konrad have decent parts, but we get an ‘Alfred Hitchcock Speaking’ end chapter, rather than the normal meeting, which doesn’t work so well.  The book does, however, allow Arthur to show his appreciation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Horatio apparently met him as a young man) and the plot pays homage to The Adventure Of The Six Napoleons, which Jupiter mentions.  Well constructed, with some great set pieces (Jupe and his chair, especially), this is a great read and I’d highly recommend it.

Armada format a paperback (printed between 1971 and 1979), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

Armada format b paperback (printed between 1981 and 1984), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

The Secret Of Skeleton Island, by Robert Arthur

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published and, to celebrate, I re-read and compiled my all-time Top 10 (safe in the knowledge that it would be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I posted my list here, having previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here).

Following this, I decided to re-visit some of the books I'd missed on that second read-through, without any intention of posting reviews of them but, as if often the way, it didn't quite work out like that.  Happily, this is on-going and so here's an additional review...

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed between 1968 and 1970), cover art by Roger Hall

The Three Investigators are thrilled when they are invited to star as frogmen in an underwater film - especially as it means a trip to lonely Skeleton Island!

But Jupiter, Pete and Bob soon discover that the island's past hides a sinister secret.  Danger awaits them in the mysterious ocean depths, for the sea-bed is rich not only in fish - but in sunken treasure!

illustration from the Collins/Armada editions,
 by Roger Hall
Sally Farrington tries to complete her turn
on the carousel

Alfred Hitchcock enlists the boys help to travel to Atlantic Bay, on the East Coast, where a production company is having problems finishing off the film they’re working on.  Pete’s dad, a special effects technician, is leading a team on Skeleton Island who are trying to rebuild parts of a long abandoned amusement park, where the climax of the film will take place.  The boys hit trouble as soon as they arrive, stranded on a smaller nearby island called The Hand and, once on the mainland, discover that nothing is quite what it seems.  The local community, suffering with the recent loss of their oyster fishing economy, is struggling and the production company is having problems with theft and treasure hunters.  Then, as Jupiter and the boys delve further, the ghost of a local girl is seen riding a derelict carousel.

The sixth book in the series, this is the first to take place away from Rocky Beach and gets a mention in The Mystery Of The Fiery Eye when, discussing the use of the Rolls, Pete says, “the thirty days ran out while we were back East tangling with the mystery of Skeleton Island”.  By extension, of course, this assumes the events of Skeleton Island take place thirty days after the boys investigate Terror Castle, which made for a very exciting month!  With the relocation there’s no mention of Headquarters and it’s some way into the book before Jupiter gets to show someone the card but Arthur works all this in well, making the disorientation a key part of the first set piece, as the boys are stranded on The Hand group of reefs.

The locations are well realised, from Skeleton Island (which doesn’t feature as much as you’d expect it to) to Fishingport, the town on the mainland where the boys B&B is located.  The Hand is an inspired creation and features a gripping set piece later in the book, a sequence in the underwater cave that is an exercise in tension and suspense.

The use of Fishingport allows Arthur some flashes of social comment, a sad and depressed fishing village decimated by “some tiny red parasite” that has “got into the oysters in this part of the bay”.  Many townsfolk are desperate to find the treasure Captain One-Ear dumped off the island in 1717 as the British closed in on him and one of them is Chris, a young Greek boy who befriends the lads.  Seeking the treasure to raise enough so his sick father can go home for treatment, he’s badly treated by almost every adult in the story - apart from the police chief - but doesn’t let it deter him and he plays a key part in the plot.

Characterisation, as always with Arthur, is very good indeed with the boys all getting a chance to shine, especially Bob and Pete when Jupe is laid low by a cold.  While some of the supporting cast are merely brushstrokes, the stress of the adults - both in the town and on the film - comes out in the dialogue, with most of them (including Mr Crenshaw at times) being generally dismissive of the boys.  Chris is likeable and well-realised, making us root for him before we properly find out the truth of his situation and what the true secret of the island actually is.  And then, of course, there’s the excellent Sally Farrington, forever trying to finish her ride on the carousel, a spooky image (that terrified my sister & I back in 1978) well used in the story and superbly captured by Roger Hall’s illustration.

The Secret Of Skeleton Island is special to me in that, as I wrote about here, it was the book that introduced me to the series (I still have that now-very-beaten-up hardback edition) and was also the final piece of my search to get the first thirty Armada books in format b (as I wrote about here).  With a good pace, suspenseful set pieces and a terrific use of location, this is a cracking read and I highly recommend it.

Armada format a paperback (printed between 1970 and 1979 ), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

Armada format b paperback (printed between 1981 and 1983), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

Ten Favourite Covers: Alfred Hitchcock

In the second entry of my occasional series highlighting ten of my favourite covers (you can read the Childhood Terrors one here), I thought I'd mark the 120th birthday of Sir Alfred Hitchcock by looking at some of his fantastic anthologies.

As before (and perhaps to explain the eclectic choice), the only rule is that the bulk of the covers must come from my own library.

1960

Edited, as a lot of his anthologies were, by Robert Arthur who went on to create my beloved the Three Investigators series (also using the Hitchcock name).  His credit appears in the acknowledgements - "the editor gratefully acknowledges the invaluable assistance of Robert Arthur".

1963

This is the 1977 Mayflower edition and I wish I could remember now where I bought it from.

1963

Part One (which I don't own) includes Daphne Du Maurier's novelette The Birds.

1964

1964

1964

1967

Edited by Peter Haining, who also compiled one of my favourite childhood books The Restless Bones.

1969

1972

1980

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, England on August 13, 1899, to William and Emma, the youngest of their three children.  After attending technical school at 15, Hitchcock worked as a draftsman, advertising designer and writer until his interest in photography led to him to London’s nascent film industry.  He started as title card designer and began directing with Number 13 (1922) which was unfinished and is now a lost film.  After making some films in Germany, he came back to London for his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927).

He quickly gained a reputation as a craftsman skilled in delivering suspense (often laced with dark humour) and though he made films in a variety of genres, he specialised in the thriller.  After moving to Hollywood in 1939, he produced his most recognised works and also became a household name with his penchant for self-promotion and a nice line in gallows humour.  He introduced two television anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955 to 1965) and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 to 1965), directing seventeen episodes of the former and one of the latter and also ‘edited’ a series of popular horror and suspense anthologies.

During his sixty year career, he directed 54 features and pioneered a lot of cinematic techniques that are still applied to film today.  Among these ‘Hitchcockian’ (as they came to be known) touches was the use of the camera to mimic a person’s gaze (making viewers into voyeurs) while critic Murray Pomerance wrote his shots displayed “the full expression of a character's attitude, feeling, knowledge, position, history, and understanding ... in a single brilliant coup”.  By 1960 he’d directed four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) (which I wrote about here), and Psycho (1960), while in  2012 Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane (1941) as the British Film Institute's best film.

In recognition of his body of work, he won the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Directors Guild of America's Lifetime Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.  He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in December 1979, received his knighthood.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, who married his assistant director and close collaborator Alma Reville in 1926 (they had one daughter, Patricia), died of renal failure on 29th April 1980.

me, with the Madame Tussauds model of Hitchcock, London 2003

See other Ten Favourite Cover posts here...

sources:
Wikipedia
The Hitchcock Zone
The Dark Side of Genius, by Donald Spoto

The Mystery Of The Stuttering Parrot, by Robert Arthur

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Three Investigators being published and, to celebrate, I re-read and compiled my all-time Top 10 (safe in the knowledge that it would be subject to change in years to come, of course).  I posted my list here, having previously read all 30 of the original series from 2008 to 2010 (a reading and reviewing odyssey that I blogged here).

Following this, I decided to re-visit some of the books I'd missed on that second read-through, without any intention of posting reviews of them but, as if often the way, it didn't quite work out like that.  Happily, this is on-going and so here's an additional review...

Collins Hardback First Edition (printed between 1967 and 1971), cover art by Ed Vebell

When eccentric Mr. Silver dies he leaves an extraordinary mystery for The Three Investigators to puzzle out.  A priceless masterpiece has disappeared, and the only clues to its hiding-place lie with seven parrots - who refuse to talk!  

Worse still, Huganay, the international art thief, is hot on the same trail...

illustration from the
Collins/Armada editions, by Roger Hall

At the behest of Alfred Hitchcock (as described at the end of The Secret Of Terror Castle), The Three Investigators are engaged to find the missing parrot of Malcolm Fentriss, an old actor friend of the directors.  Very quickly, they discover that trying to locate Billy Shakespeare - the missing parrot - is going to be a lot more difficult than they originally thought, since it seems to be part of a riddle to find a lost treasure.  Hindered along the way by sinister fat man art dealer Claude Claudius and the international art thief (and gentleman criminal) Huganay, the boys must use all their ingenuity to keep one step ahead, find the lost parrot and uncover the clues to “a piece off the end of the rainbow, with a pot of gold underneath it.”

The second book in the series by Robert Arthur, this was published simultaneously with Terror Castle and, quite literally, follows on directly from it.  With a good, solid opening (as Jupe and Pete make their way through the overgrown garden of Mr Fentriss’ old house) and a decent central mystery, this works well as the plot twists and turns on itself.  The clues and parrots are, essentially, the macguffin (tying in nicely with Hitchcock and Arthur, who edited his anthologies) but the boys’ detective skills are well observed and nicely believable.  Jupiter is a bit more sociable than he was in the first book and, once again, Bob gets waylaid with his job at the library but there’s a nice early appearance by his Dad who, as usual, helps out with one of the clues.

Most of the action takes place in Hollywood, rather than Rocky Beach (though Headquarters features strongly) and the various houses and streets are well used and described.  The climax takes place in an abandoned graveyard in Merita Valley which, coated in coastal fog, makes a terrific location for a great set piece.  The book also features the first use of the Ghost-to-Ghost Hook-up and the term “ramble and scramble”, though I think the latter is used for a slightly different purpose in future stories.

The characterisation is as strong as you would expect from Arthur, both Mr Claudius and Huganay in particular (the latter’s parting comments to Jupiter hint at a mutual respect that would re-surface in The Mystery Of The Screaming Clock and it’s a shame the character wasn’t used by any of the other series writers).  Skinny Norris makes another appearance and Carlos, the little Mexican boy who helps the trio is a sparky, feisty highlight (while it’s mentioned that he later lives with the Joneses he doesn’t appear in any of the other books).  Also typical of Arthur, there’s some great descriptive writing (on approaching the old house: “That isn’t a house I want to approach,” Pete told him.  “It looks like a house full of locked rooms that shouldn’t be opened”) and, combined with the excellent set pieces and nice touches of humour, this is a great read that I’d very much recommend.

Armada format a paperback (printed between 1971 and 1979), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

Armada format b paperback (printed between 1980 and 1984), cover art by Peter Archer
(cover scan of my copy)

The internal illustrations for the UK edition were drawn by Roger Hall.

Thanks to Ian Regan for the artwork (you can see more at his excellent Cover Art database here)

Ten Favourite Covers: Childhood Terrors

Thanks to my Australian chum Imelda Evans, I was looking at Annabel Smith’s website recently and noticed she did a regular Top Tens feature.  I thought it was a great idea and decided to adapt it for my own blog but rather than show (for example) my Top Ten Travel Books, I’d skew it slightly differently.  My only rule is that the bulk of the covers must come from my own library.

This first entry looks at books which caused a bit of (gleeful) childhood terror.  I hope you see an old favourite here too…

1962

Published by Puffin in 1967, mine is the 1968 edition.  Alfred Hitchcock had little involvement with the anthologies that bore his name and one of his frequent editors, as is the case here, was Robert Arthur (who created the Three Investigators series) whose credit appears in the acknowledgements - "the editor gratefully acknowledges the invaluable assistance of Robert Arthur".

1971

I have the 1978 edition (as pictured), which I got - along with The Restless Bones - from the Rothwell Juniors Book Club.  A collection of true-life tales, this was my first introduction to the mystery of the Mary Celeste.

1972

A fantastic entry in the long-running series, this 1984 edition features cover art by Peter Archer who also produced the cover for the 'a' and 'b' format Three Investigator paperbacks.  I was lucky enough to meet Mary Danby in 2012 at FantasyCon in Brighton, when Johnny Mains introduced us and she was as lovely as I'd always hoped she would be.

1975

This was originally published by Pan in 1971.

1977

Another true stories collection (though it does look at the likes of Dracula, Jekyll & Hyde and Frankenstein), this takes in historical figures like Vlad the Impaler, Countess Bathory, wolf children, Rasputin and The Elephant Man.  I loved it.  It was re-printed in 1979 as The Hamlyn Book Of Horror.  Daniel Farson, who led a very interesting life, was the grand-nephew of Bram Stoker.

1978

One of my favourite childhood books (I wrote about it before here), this also featured true stories and the last - The Voice In The Graveyard - used to scare the living daylights out of me.  Even now, 40 years later and far removed from the nine-year-old me reading it over the 1978 summer holidays, I can still remember the frisson of fear as a whispering voice pleaded, “…help us…”

1978

More from Daniel Farson and more true stories to terrify nine-year-old me.  Fantastic fun!

1979

More from the wonderful Ms Danby, with another great cover by Peter Archer.

1979

Originally published by Gollancz in 1977, this is another sterling anthology from Peter Haining complete with stories by M. R. James (Lost Hearts), Algernon Blackwood (The Attic), Joan Aiken (The Looking Glass Tree), Robert Bloch (Sweets To The Sweet) and Ray Bradbury (The October Game) amongst others.

1983

Not part of my library unfortunately (I found out about it through 'Dem Bones' at the excellent Vault Of Evil), though I plan to rectify that in the near future not only for the stories but because I love the combination of that incredible cover art with the warning 'These stories are NOT to be read by the very young'.



Puffin Books is the long-standing childrens imprint of Penguin Books and was formed in 1940.

Piccolo Books is the children's imprint of Pan Macmillan.

Armada Books was set up by Gordon Landsborough in 1962 as a paperback imprint of Mayfair Books Ltd, focussing exclusively on books for children to buy with the pocket money.  Collins bought it in 1966 as an imprint to publish books for 10-15 year olds under their Fontana Books paperback arm.  Armada ceased in 1995 but I will always love it because it published The Three Investigators.

Beaver was the children's imprint of Hamlyn which is now part of the Octopus Publishing Group, owned by Hachette Livre.


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