<a href=”http://www.navrang.com/?Page=Category&ID=8781”> Three Investigators

</a>are Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews. They tackle misleading clues and danger before finally solving a crime…..Last chapter is an epilogue with Alfred Hitchcock (in later series Hector Sebastian), reviewing the mystery. Originally, the series has been authored by Robert Arthur. The later books have been contributed by William Arden, Carey, Nickey West, Marc Brandel. Jupiter, Pete, and Bob live in Rocky Beach, a fictional southern California coastal town described as 10 to 12 miles from Hollywood and 15 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Jupiter’s family owns and operates the Jones Salvage Yard (“the Yard”), where the team’s headquarters is hidden in an old trailer, which itself is hidden amid the “junk.” There are several ingenious secret entrances (ie. Tunnel Two, Door Four…etc). The trailer’s equipment includes a telephone, a darkroom, a filing cabinet, and a workshop in which Jupiter assembles devices, mostly from discarded items found in the junk yard, which help the Investigators in their detective work. The team often has to pay for what they take by working for Aunt Mathilda, a hard taskmaster who believes “idle” boys should be put to work.

Jupiter has designed a business card to intrigue their potential clients, memorable to readers particularly for its three question marks. These potential clients often ask what the question marks stand for, giving Jupiter an opening to impress them with his explanation. The boys’ patrons usually did no more than introduce them to cases, meet again with them at the end of a particular adventure, and sometimes refer them to specialists such as a supernatural. At no point is it ever suggested that the patrons provided the Investigators funding in their work.

The Three Investigators solve cases by doing research (Bob’s speciality), active observation (Pete’s speciality), and clever deduction (Jupiter’s speciality). Though the boys are both younger and lack the resources and connections of fellow fictional detectives The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, they have found ways to compensate or ignore these handicaps. Though too young to drive, the Three Investigators soon acquire reliable transportation in the form of a Rolls Royce limousine driven by British chauffeur Worthington.

Jupiter won the use of the limousine for “thirty days, of twenty-four hours each” after winning a promotional contest held by the rental agency, soon before beginning their investigation of The Secret of Terror Castle.