Product Description
The three investigators try to solve a mystery involving a gold Indian amulet and a weird laughing shadow that appeared to them in the night. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Timeless series by great writers
I read this series as a child and am now turning my kids onto it.It is a great vocabulary builder that will keep them on the edge of their seats and have them trying constantly to figure out who done it.Jupiter Jones and his crew are just plain fun to follow through this incredible literary series.

Once you start it you won't be able to put it down
I really enjoyed this book because it kept you consumed in it. It's about three investigators who are trying to find out what the mystery of the golden statue is. The day before the guys had stopped by a dark road to investigate a piecing cry for help. Then someon threw a statue over the wall. When they were just about to find out who threw the statue a high pierced laugh rose out of the night. Out of nowhere and scared the detectives off, on their way to a statue expert, a man leaped out waving a knife and snatched the statue away from them. I rate this book a six because it was enjoyable through out but otherwise, not very detailed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Satisified customer
Item shiped in a timely manner and arrived in the described condition. Would use this seller again.

Not Free SF Reader
Countess in the junkyard.


It isn't often noblewomen types hang out at secondhand stuff places, but here you have it.An estate, apparently, has sold off stuff to Jupiter Jones' uncle, and wants it back.

The mystery in this hunt for stuff is a picture of a house, smaller on each item.

A case of not so simple deduction
The Mystery of the Shrinking House offers up yet another impressive display of young Jupiter Jones' deduction skills.At first, there does not seem to be much of a case at all-a Countess wants to reclaim the items from her dead brother's estate, all of which had recently been purchased by Jupe's Uncle Titus for the Jones Salvage Yard.By the time the Countess arrives to make the request, all of the items have been sold, and the boys take on the task of tracking the items down.They find almost everything except for a strange series of 20 paintings; these paintings all depict a particular house, and the house is drawn progressively smaller on each one.When bad guys show up to interfere with the Three Investigators' budding investigation, Jupiter knows that the strange paintings are the key to something big.It is worth noting that this book features Jupiter's young nemesis Skinny Norris, but Skinny once again proves himself to be no Dr. Moriarty to Jupiter's Sherlock Holmes.

It's a well-told story, complete with a surprise or two at the end.The whole logic of the shrinking house clue ended up feeling slightly contrived, but the path to discovery was an enjoyable one.The boys seem to walk right into one trap after another, but these detectives have never left a mystery unsolved and refuse to do so now, even in the face of danger.There is plenty of action in these pages, but this story really does hinge on the deductive reasoning powers of Jupiter Jones.In this, his fourth Three Investigators mystery (and the eighteenth in the series as a whole), William Arden demonstrates a good feel for the characters, but even he fails to capture all of the nuances that made series creator Robert Arthur's books so gripping and entertaining. ... Read more

Product Description

But John Russell Taylor didn't have to go that route. He wrote thisbiography with the participation and blessings of the man himself. InHitch, Taylor admits that his subject often projects hisfantasies onto the screen. He also provides a good deal of insightinto Hitchcock's domineering, obsessively courteous demeanor. But thefocus here is on the details of Hitchcock's life, the preparation andproduction of his movies, and his relationships with the countlesscinematic luminaries who worked with him, including Ingrid Bergman,Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, and James Stewart. --Raphael Shargel ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Delightful Surprise despite the Gloss
This is a wonderful glossily written biography. It is written with much gusto. This is one of the first biographies of Hitchcock that I read. I knew that Alfred Hitchcock was a great filmmaker, but his antics off-screen were equally droll. Despite the fact Hitchcock's films are superficially discussed, the author, John Russell Taylor manages to narrate Alfred Hitchcock's life and times in such a way that I could not put it down, and I read it in record time (at least for me). There are better biographies on Hitchcock out there (Donald Spoto's for instance) but this edition makes for enjoyable reading. The facts are all there but it is indeed a matter of interpretation of how the numerous anecdotes are retold that makes the difference here. Author John Russell Taylor definitely takes the high road.

Fascinating!
This book was a really easy read. With tales of Hitch's career and providing insight - I believe - into the man behind the much misunderstood myth.

"Hitch" is mostly filled with tales from behind the scenes rather than an examination of Hitch's craft and technique. I enjoyed it because I think knowing the PERSON behind a picture will often explain his technique better than any self-proclaimed "expert" who will often take technical necessity and make it symbolist bull.

Well written and very interesting subject matter. A must for anyone!

Have her dry-cleaned
Highly readable and informative. Recommended for all Hitch fans as well as anyone interested in the history of cinema. Beyond the basic facts,there are lots of telling anecdotes and perceptive observations, such as Hitchcock's famous distinction between shock and suspense. My favorite Hitch quip:a father wrote to Hitchcock for some advice. After seeing Les Diaboliques his daughter refused to take a bath, and now after seeing Psycho she wouldn't take a shower either. "Have her dry-cleaned" was Hitchcock's cheerful reply.

Many glaring omissions
Hitchcock is my very favorite film director, and I think he's definitely one of the best, if not THE best, directors ever, so I was very disappointed to read this book which only skims over Hitch's life, givingsome films barely a page or two. Taylor looks at Hitch's many movies withneither a critical or even historical eye--and many, many details are leftout, and many facts are just plain backwards, especially that"Notorious" was based on an idea provided by David O. Selznick,and that "Spellbound" started as Hitch's idea (it was in fact theother way around, with the recently depression-cured Selznick wanting tomake a film about analysis; in fact, in the few paragraphs afforded to"Spellbound," Mae Romm, Selznick's therapist who acted as anadvisor on the film--and set--isn't even mentioned!). Donald Spoto's twobooks about Hitchcock, one a film-by-film analysis and the other a straightbiography, are much better than this slight volume.

Great book! Really covers his films in depth. Excellent Work
The book was great it really showed his movies to the full extent. The beggining of the book(first 3 chapters) discussed his childhood, but could have went more in depth. It really makes you feel what Hitch was feallingwhen doing the movies. ... Read more

Product Description

A comprehensive introduction to Alfred Hitchcock¿s major British and Hollywood films, which navigates the reader through the wealth of critical commentaries.

• Locates the director¿s remarkable body of work within traditions of highbrow, middlebrow and lowbrow culture, and their appeal to different types of audience
• The author explores Hitchcock¿s mastery of the technical means used to build and maintain suspense.
• Examines a style which always featured, murder, espionage, deception, mistaken identities, chase sequences, wry touches of humor and occasional intrusion of the macabre in various combinations

Customer Reviews (3)

Not Free SF Reader
The Three Investigators are actually three teenage kids, one Jupiter Jones and two others with ordinary names : Pete Crenshaw and Robert Andrews.They live in a made-up place, as that is of course more fun.

In this story the three junior detectives investigate a mystery involving a chinese treasure chest, a no longer floating sunken sea vessel, and person who may not be who they seem.

Great fun but just an average Three Investigators mystery
This isn't one of the more exciting Three Investigators mysteries, but The Secret of Phantom Lake is still a great read for both young readers and adult 3I fans such as myself.There is not quite as much danger to the boys during the course of this investigation; they are accosted a few times and trapped in tight places once or twice, but the actions taken against them are clearly done just to slow them down rather than actually harm them.We hardly get a look inside the secret headquarters, my favorite childhood location, this time around because much of the action takes place around Phantom Lake just outside of Rocky Beach.This novel is your basic treasure hunt adventure; it all starts with an old sea chest, a false compartment in the chest, and mysterious journal entries from a dead man.If there is indeed a treasure, Jupiter knows he must work quickly because two suspicious and threatening men are also on the hunt for it.The supporting characters are not flushed out as well as I would have liked, and for this reason the surprise at the end failed to surprise me much at all.Still, I just love watching Jupiter's mind at work on solving a seemingly unsolvable mystery.This nineteenth book in the original series, written by prominent 3I author William Arden, does not contain the frenetic pace and throb of excitement that are to be found in the earlier novels of series creator Robert Arthur, but it's still a fun read sure to stimulate the mind in an attempt to figure everything out before Jupiter Jones does.

A very good book, READ IT!
The Secret of Phantom Lake is a very interesting book. You'll never guess "Who Done it" until the end of the story. This is a must read book! ... Read more

Product Description
With a clue provided by an unusual stuffed cat, The Three Investigators solve the mysterious troubles of an accident-prone carnival. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Satisified customer
Item shiped in a timely manner and arrived in the described condition. Would use this seller again.

This is one book!!
I loved this book!! When the Hardy Boys get boring read this book!!! I loved it!! It starts off wheen Jupiter wins a cat and then a man steals it!! This story does not let you figure out what is reason of the crooked cat!! I think any kid can read this since it was soo good you don't put it down and you r on your toes all the time!! This is the best book ever and evryone will give it 5 stars unless they r some weirdo lookin 4 trouble but as i say this is one major crisis if someone says this book is bad i mean who could say that to a good lovin bbok!!!

This is one book!!
I loved this book!!When the Hardy Boys get boring read this book!!!I loved it!!It starts off wheen Jupiter wins a cat and then a man steals it!!This story does not let you figure out what is reason of the crooked cat!!I think any kid can read this since it was soo good you don't put it down and you r on your toes all the time!!This is the best book ever and evryone will give it 5 stars unless they r some weirdo lookin 4 trouble but as i say this is one major crisis if someone says this book is bad i mean who could say that to a good lovin bbok!!!

Great
THIS BOOK IS AWESOME. IF YOU ARE IN 4-6 GRADE YOU GOTTA TRY THIS SERIES ... Read more

Product Description
Searching for a legendary pirate treasure, the three investigators find a band of modern day pirates. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fine example of the boys' mystery series genre
This example of boys' mystery series fiction holds up remarkably well since the 40 odd years since it was first published. Not simply as a good juvenile book but as a book that can be enjoyed by adults in a nostalgic mood as well.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are unreadable past a certain age but the Three Investigator books have a more sophisticated aura about them. In this particular case, the mystery is fairly complex, there are multiple suspects, and the "how" is genuinely surprising.

Even the characters are beginning to break out of their molds in this book. Jupiter and Pete step out of their "fat brainy guy" and "all brawn and no brains" stereotypes to a degree. Only Bob seems stuck in "mild mannered bookworm" mode.

If your lucky enough to have the original hardcover Harry Kane's wonderful illustrations add to the enjoyment.

In short, if you have a nostalgia itch to scratch or a 10-15 year old who can stand to read more than text messages, this book will suit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Short Stories
Hitchcock has several books of short stories for young readers. They're all good. ... Read more

Product Description
When a 3,000-year-old mummy begins to whisper strange words in an ancient Egyptian tongue, the Three Investigators are determined to find out is an ancient curse is about to be fulfilled. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Alfred Hitchcock and the 3 Investigators - Whispering Mummy
The item was what I expected and arrived much quicker than expected. I would gladly purchase from this seller again. Thanks

No Alfred Hitchcock!
This book does NOT include Alfred Hitchcock; instead it's been revised to be some author named Horace Sebastian.How irksome.

Another treasure from my youth
Jupiter, Pete, and Bob (the Three Investigators) have their third case and this one is stranger than ever.An archaeologist in Hollywood has a mummy which he claims is whispering to him.He doesn't know what it's saying and is afraid of being thought crazy, but he's willing to let the boys help.They also meet a young Libyan boy who's come to bring the mummy Ra-Orkon home, but things get dangerous when Pete and the Libyan boy are inadvertently kidnapped.

This book was perhaps a bit more exciting than the previous two, but my son and I thought it wasn't quite as clever.This is a series I read/devoured as a kid back in the 70s, and I enjoyed reading it with my son.The characters are extremely likeable and it always made me wish I had access to a "salvage yard" and could fix and figure out things like Jupiter Jones.Rereading these books brings back fond memories and I can almost *smell* the library again, but I think many young readers would enjoy this exciting and well-written series.It is unfortunately underappreciated and almost forgotten today.

Speak to me Mummy!
Quite a few children's mystery book series have become classics. Most people are familiar with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift. Even the Boxcar Children are relatively well-known. However, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators were well-written books that offered an intelligent, interesting and more contemporary alternative to many of the earlier classic series. Many people recall the earlier series well, but the Three Investigators series, which Robert Arthur wrote and debuted in 1964, has, for now, largely been overshadowed by the other series and generally forgotten. Fortunately, all of these books are available either from Amazon or from other internet sources.

This book is the third book in the series, following "The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot," and preceding "The Mystery of the Green Ghost."This mystery finds the three investigators looking into the mystery of the mummy of Ra-Orkon, which appears to be whispering to the professor that owns the mummy.While we can hope for something genuinely supernatural to happen, we know from the first two stories that the three investigators base their solutions on logic and science.

The three investigators, Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, are puzzled by how the mummy can speak.The obvious answer is some sort of radio, but there is none.A ventriloquist is also ruled out.Just how can the mummy be speaking?Perhaps there is something supernatural happening in this story!The supernatural investigation must wait because the mummy of Ra-Orkon is taken.Soon the sarcophagus of Ra-Orkon is taken; only the sarcophagus contains two boys!Things are heating up for the three investigators.

Perhaps the biggest question of all for readers is why is Ra-Orkon valuable?There were no jewels or valuables found with Ra-Orkon.Is the cat that appears truly the spirit of Ra-Orkon, determined to see his mummy returned to his homeland?These are but a few of the mysteries awaiting readers.

I enjoyed this Three Investigators novel.I was unable to figure out the whispering mummy and had to await the answer revealed by Robert Arthur, the author.There were moments when at least one member of the Three Investigators seemed to be in real danger.Robert Arthur managed to unfold the story in a way that kept me interested without revealing the answers too soon.

If you are looking for mystery books for children and you are looking for an alternative to the stories I listed earlier, I highly recommend the Three Investigator series.I do recommend starting with the first book in the series, which is an excellent introduction to this series.

Enjoy!

TheMystery of the Whispering Mummy
I think this book was awesome. It is a really good book for mystery lovers. But if you don't like to be scared at night, don't read it at night! Otherwise, I couldn't put it down. I read it at breakfast, lunch and whenever I was bored. ... Read more

Product Description
Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is one of the icons of American filmmaking.A perfect example of Hollywood cinema at its best, it is an engaging piece of entertainment as well as a fascinating meditation on the nature of the film itself. A suspense thriller about a chair-bound observer who suspectshis neighbor of murdering his wife, the narrative becomes the vehicle for Hitchcock's exploration of the basic ingredients of cinema, from voyeurism and dreamlike fantasy, to the process of narration itself.This volume provides a fresh analysis of Rear Window, which is examined from a variety of perspectives in a series of essays published here for the first time. ... Read more

Product Description

Did Alfred Hitchcock, the world-famous Master of Suspense, have a secret life as a detective? Did his mordant humor hide a deductive mind worthy of a Hercule Poirot or Nero Wolfe?

The year is 1957. The sun-tanned citizenry of Los Angeles is in the grip of a bizarre series of murders.

Alfred Hitchcock is immersed in the production of his latest film, Vertigo, when he receives a macabre present, the severed ear of a woman. Fearing the ear has to do with the grisly death of a young starlet, Hitchcock decides to investigate. Joining forces with retired L.A.P.D. detective Chess Slattery, Hitch follows a trail that takes the pair from the mansions of Bel Air to the degraded haunts of Hollywood wannabes to the shabby bungalows of Venice. What they discover puts them in the path of a twisted killer hell-bent on ruining the famous Hitchcock profile.

Movie stars, gangsters and cops, the famous and the not-so-famous, all get swept up in a relentless series of events that threatens to spiral out of control and into disaster -- until Hitch masterminds a thrilling finale worthy of Vertigo itself! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great Book! Not enough Hitchcock
I have to agree with the others who reviewed this book, that there isn't enough Hitchcock in the story. In a way it is misleading in the sense that you expect Hitchcock to do a lot of the detective work instead of the ex-cop but it is still a great book and I don't regret buying it!!

I feel dizzy
There were times while reading THE VERTIGO MURDERS that I got the distinct impression that the author was not expecting to get the required permission to insert Alfred Hitchcock into his story.Certainly the Master of Suspense has a very limited role in the book; he appears at the beginning and again at the end, while having only a handful of cameos during the bulk of the tale.During his brief appearances, he doesn't seem to be a terribly distinct character.Apart from dropping a lot of trivia about the films that he is busy with, one really doesn't feel as though we're dealing with the genuine article.Without Hitchcock, the book has very little to offer as compensation.It's entertaining for much of the duration, yet never memorably so, and there are several elements that pull this story down.

The book is heavily based upon the dime novels of the time in which it is set (the 1940s in Hollywood, California).Yet, interrupting this pastiche of the pulp genre are numerous raw (or perhaps "more modern" would be a better way to describe them) elements.Characters refer to female body parts in an explicit manner, discuss back alley abortions, and are occasionally more graphic than one would have expected had this actually been written during that era (this was published in 2000).Had these more realistic elements been seamlessly inserted into the narrative, then I think the effect could have been very interesting.After all, the advantage of writing in this style today is one can get away with discussing certain material that wouldn't have been permitted in that era.But in THE VERTIGO MURDERS, the attempt just isn't coherent enough to be truly effective.The modern elements are too jarring and distracting.One goes from cartoon violence, smack dab into intensely gritty realism, and then right back into the relatively innocuous world of pulp sleaze.It wasn't a bad idea, but the execution just didn't work for me.

The resolution of the story's big mystery comes as a disappointment.The ending makes logical sense, but it arrives completely out of nowhere.Really excellent mysteries often times will have the answer staring the reader right in the face.Clues work best when they're obvious enough for the audience to remember, but subtle enough not to give the game away before the final scene.Unfortunately in this book, the clues are buried in such a way that when the solution is revealed, one will be taking the book apart trying to discover the clues locked away in an obscure paragraph.While there are a few cheats where the author has kept some information hidden until the end, most of the facts are present; the solution just isn't all that satisfying.

All in all, this was a bit of a disappointment.There were certainly some fun parts of the book, and the journey that the investigator took was fairly interesting at times.But the plot was stretched far too thin for the amount of pages that it took up.While the book boasted some huge margins and large spaces between lines (it almost looks like double spacing), it could have done with a handful of major edits to get rid of some of the excess material.On the other hand, I did like the team of Hollywood director and ex-cop that was set up at the end.I wouldn't mind reading further mysteries and adventures of this pairing (the ending certainly sets up the possibility of there being more to come from these two), I would just hope that the plot and story that they find themselves in would be better thought out.

Hollywood has a new detective... therein lies the Hitch.
I give a book 100 pages or one day, which ever comes second, before I make the decision to give up or keep reading. I finished this book only because it took me less than a day to read. Hitchcock is barely detectable in the book, hardly the detecive as the cover implies. He does the hiring of the ex-cop main character and "exposes" the murderer at the end but not much else. As to the title, the connection to the film is barely noticable other than it being the film that Hitch is directing at the time. [....]

Derivative but fun
This struck me as very much of an imitation of Stuart Kaminsky's Toby Peters books. The first-person narrator is an ex-cop who spent some time in movie studio security and then sets up as a private investigator; the milieu is Hollywood; and there's significant use of real (albeit now dead) people in the book. There are differences, of course. The book is set in 1957 rather than the early '40s. Chess Slattery doesn't have Toby Peters' bad back that's an ongoing theme of that series. Neither is exactly major. The closest thing to a major difference is that in this book Alfred Hitchcock not only employs Slattery--he also solves the mystery, with Slattery primarily providing the legwork. Briefly, an aspiring starlet is brutally murdered and mutilated. Hitchcock had seen her on the golf course behind his house the night after she was supposed to have been murdered, apparently being arrested by a couple of cops. He hires Slattery to help him find out what really happened. There are a couple more murders, along with significant involvement on the parts of Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak (the co-stars of Hitchcock's _Vertigo_, which is being filmed during the course of the book and gives it its title). It appears that the author may have a series in mind; at the end of the book Hitchcock proposes retaining Slattery as a steady employee. I can see books like The Psycho Murders, The Birds Murders, The Frenzy Murders-and so on following. (Hitchcock and Slattery didn't meet soon enough to have The Rope Murders or The Rear Window Murders, though...) The book is a good enough-if very fast-read, but too derivative to give very high marks to, or to keep.

misleading
The book jacket is misleading.Alfred Hitchcock is a minor character in this stock, unimaginative novel that reads like it was dusted off from a fifties file of tired unsold movie plots. It seems odd too that the jacket boasts that this novel was approved by Universal and the Hitchcock estate.What this means is that Hitchcock is so blandly portrayed he's unrecognizable.Forget about the man's droll wit or legendary quotes, this Hitchcock is grim and colorless.Perhaps the author was legally hobbled in how he could depict Hitchcock but whatever the story, THE VERTIGO MURDERS is a missed opportunity all the way around. ... Read more

Product Description
General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1913Original Publisher: Henry Holt and CompanySubjects: English languageEnglish literatureLanguage Arts ... Read more