I’ve read books in a single day before — hell, I still do — but it’s been a long time since I read a book in one sitting: take a seat, open the book, finish reading it, stand up. Welcome, then, to The Mystery of the Dead Man’s Riddle (1974), the twenty-second book in the Three Investigators series and the sixth to be written by Dennis Lynds under the name William Arden.

When eccentric recluse Marcus ‘Dingo’ Towne dies, he leaves his rumoured great wealth not to a member of his family — “[I] see no reason to leave it all to shiftless, greedy, stupid, and otherwise useless people who liked my money more than they liked me!” — but to anyone who can decipher a riddle to be made publically available:

Where the wild dog lives, the bottle and stopper shows the way to the billabong.

Above the apples and pears all alone the Lady from Bristol rides from a friend.

At the tenth ball of twine, you and me see our handsome mug ahead.

One man’s victim is another’s darlin’, follow the nose to the place.

Where men buy their trouble and strife, get out if you can.

In the posh Queen’s old Ned, be bright and natural and the prize is yours.

There is, of course, pandemonium, with a great many fortune-hunters figuring out that Dingo himself is the “wild dog” of the first line and so descending upon his dilapidated shack to look for any bottles they can find…an undertaking made more difficult by the fact that Dingo collected bottles.

Before too long, Jupiter, Pete, and Bob are hired by Dingo’s daughter Nelly and her lawyer fiancé to look into the riddle and do what they can. Of course, it doesn’t help — or does it…? — that Nelly’s eight year-old son Billy is so awed by the famous Investigators that he keeps trying to stick his helpful oar in, more often than not getting in the way.

The book really does rip along at a great pace, with Arden clearly learning from his experiences in the series to date. That each new line of the riddle represents a new line of unusual thinking really helps, because time is spent in each case running up against false leads, oftentimes stumbling into the correct solution without realising its significance. It also enables some interesting insights, like Americans not knowing about Cockney Rhyming Slang (honestly, they won’t know about Guy Fawkes Night next…), the zoning principles of buses in the greater Los Angeles Area, and just how much Pete Crenshaw eats for breakfast every day.

Along for the hunt is the Investigators’ nemesis E. Skinner ‘Skinny’ Norris, and this might be the best utilisation of the character to date. I’ve not especially been a fan of Skinny in the series — he’s always been there more to pad events than to actually drive them — but Arden does a good job of keeping him current and frustrating…though, gleeps, it would have helped our heroes significantly if they didn’t blurt out each new realisation as loudly as possible while in public spaces. I’m also a little amused by the late assertion that Skinny “wouldn’t do anything that dangerous” when a certain action almost sees our trio killed, which seems frankly at odds with the actions Skinny undertakes in Chapter 6 (called ‘A Dangerous Prank’, in case you were wondering) which definitely could have seen the triumvirate at least seriously maimed.

Things rocket along, we bounce from one flimsy-but-highly-enjoyable deduction to the next, and there’s a chance for both genuine intelligence on behalf of our central trio (“[T]he branch my friend is holding has wilted leaves…”) and some well-judged comedy…

“Hey,” Turk growled, “who you calling kidnappers?”

Mr. Savo scowled. “We’re no kidnappers, punk!”

“Technically,” Jupiter began, “you are—”

…and it all pays off with a breathless chase, a suitably tense finale, and a clever final deduction that casts some events in a new light. This sort of run-and-reason plot is hard to do well, and Arden is to be highly commended for the way he strings it together in such a compelling and readable way, keeping the peril realistic and the stakes relatable. It’s not the strongest in the series, but it might be one of the best for introducing new readers to the charms of this set of books overall, given how fleetly it races ahead and how much consideration is put into each new phase.

As the median book in the series — 21 preceding it, another 21 following — The Mystery of the Dead Man’s Riddle shows The Three Investigators off very well indeed, auguring encouragingly for the lads given the strong work recently done by Mary Virginia Carey in the books Arden isn’t writing. Could we be in the post-Robert Arthur Golden Age for Jupe, Pete, and Bob? It certainly feels like it, and I’m excited to keep reading further to see how things progress.

~

The Three Investigators hub on The Invisible Event can be found here.