Alfred Hitchcock is searching for a genuine haunted house so that his latest film will have an extra level of horrific atmosphere. He has scouts checking locations overseas but then three young men wheedle their way into his office with a proposal – they plan on investigating the nearby Terror Castle, haunted (allegedly) by the ghost of silent movie actor Stephen Terrill.

The three young men? Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, the newly-formed Three Investigators who have just got themselves their first case. But how can you prove that a castle is – or isn’t – haunted when the building is so terrifying that you can’t spend more than ten minutes in it after dark?

OK, a bit of background first of all. I’ve reviewed a few Three Investigators books over the years, as there are one of the key ingredients in my obsession with crime fiction. The series has been out of print for years, due to all sorts of complicated litigation – the final title of the original 44 book run was only published in German last year, and the preceding one, The Mystery Of The Cranky Collector, doesn’t seem to have a UK publication. Yes, I can read Death Of Two Brothers and When The Devil Was Sick at the Bodleian, but there’s no Cranky Collector on their records… Anyway, I’ve stumbled across a number of the later titles, unread by me, for a pittance and they’ll be coming your way on the blog soonish. But while I wait for them to arrive, I thought I’d take a look at the original.

And it reminded me of something that I’d long forgotten.

When people ask me about role models when I was growing up, they are all fictional characters. When you’re smarter than the average bear and, shall we say, not built for sport, the best places for role models are in fiction, and if you’d asked me a couple of days ago, I’d have given you two names – one of whom lives in a blue box and one of whom had an unfortunate incident with a radioactive spider. But I had completely forgotten Jupiter Jones. Reading this book, with the introduction to the character and focussing quite a lot on him, his intelligence, his determination, his deductive skills, his completely ignoring the fact that he is on the large side… I’d forgotten how much the character spoke to me.

There was an added bonus here too that I’d forgotten about. Early on, Bob mentions a time when his mother lost a ring and Jupiter listened to her movements during the day and went straight to where the lost ring was. Well, it reminded me of a time, years after reading the book, when I did the same thing. My not-yet wife had lost her keys, so I asked her where she had been. We then walked across Oxford to her college’s common room and I pulled the keys from under the cushion on the chair she had been sitting in. Doesn’t sound like much, but she was impressed. So given my lack of a TARDIS or a set of web-shooters, I guess Jupiter Jones had more of an effect on me than the others,,,

Oh yes, the book. Just to remind you, this is a children’s book and when I read it as a child, I remember that it scared the pants off me. And it also impressed me because it’s a proper mystery.

For a 150-page book that has to set-up the situation, there’s a lot here. In some ways, it hides the puzzle in plain sight, making you think you’re reading a jolly adventure while missing what is right in front of you. I think this is only the second time that I was re-reading this, so I knew what was coming. It seemed that some of the clues were really blatant, but speaking with my past voice, they really weren’t.

You could argue that one element of the tale is slightly unbelievable, but given that both Sherlock Holmes and Anthony Bathurst can get away with it, why not these people?

All in all, this is an excellent book, even reading it as an adult. Yes, there’s a secret headquarters in a junk yard, a gold-plated Rolls-Royce and a complete lack of explanation of where Jupiter’s parent are, but even the children’s book elements don’t intrude on what is a cleverly constructed, entertaining and, at times, pretty creepy tale.

One last thing – I understand that the series now has an official continuation in the US by Elizabeth Arthur, Robert’s daughter. The books aren’t available over here and I’ve heard differing things about them. Have any of you read them? Any thoughts?