When I first discovered the 'Three Investigators' series, I thought they were by Alfred Hitchcock. I had little idea who Hitch was at that point, but he introduced the books and my Armada editions only listed his name on the cover, as indeed did the original American hardbacks. At some point, I noticed the little notes on the title page that said things like "Text by Robert Arthur", so realised that other people wrote them and Hitch was part of some sort of licensing deal. The series taught me a lot and not just about history!

My copy of 'The Mystery of the Moaning Cave' also says "Text by Robert Arthur", but it isn't. This is the first book in the series to have been written by someone else, William Arden, who would go on to write fourteen of the forty-three titles that comprise the original run (one much later than the rest). Arthur returned to write the eleventh, 'The Mystery of the Talking Skull', but died in 1969, so Arden penned the next two and, a couple of Nick West titles aside, alternated with M. V. Carey all the way to book thirty-four when another author, Marc Brandel joined the fray.

I should add that Arden wasn't even a real name, only a pseudonym for Dennis Lynds, who wrote adult novels too under his own name and a variety of others. Most of these were mysteries, such as the 'Dan Fortune' books he wrote as Michael Collins, the 'Buena Costa' books he wrote as John Crowe and the 'Kane Jackson' books for which he also used William Arden. He even wrote a bunch of 'Shadow' novels under the house name of Maxwell Grant, but I also see two later science fiction titles in his bibliography. Other pseudonyms were Carl Dekker and Mark Sadler.

While I vaguely remember the series changing over time and the earliest books by Robert Arthur being my favourites, this stands well among them. It certainly falls under the same horror fringes and cultural history as so many of Arthur's books and trawls in a further American tradition in the western. The setting is the Crooked-Y ranch that sprawls right up to the Pacific Ocean and includes locations with such quintessential 'Three Investigators' names as Moaning Valley, Devil Mountain and El Diablo's Cave. The nearest town is Santa Carla, merely ten miles away, but there aren't any goddamn vampires here. Hey, this was 1968! Presumably they hadn't moved in yet.

It's Pete Crenshaw who starts this one out, because he's spending two weeks at the Crooked-Y at the invitation of its owners, Mr. & Mrs. Dalton. Jess Dalton used to be a rodeo rider, a well-known enough one to have been hired by Hollywood to work on westerns, where he knew Pete's dad well. However, he's not there long before he realises that there's a mystery to be solved. Quite a lot of the Daltons' ranch hands have been injured, too many to be coincidental, and also El Diablo's cave is moaning after fifty years of quiet. So his friends and colleagues Jupiter Jones and Bob Andrews quickly join him and the game is afoot.

Some of this one is rather predictable from 'Scooby Doo' mysteries. Of course, the Daltons are not going to buy into the old superstitions that tie into the local legend of El Diablo, a sort of Joaquin Murrieta type, the real life Robin Hood of the West who inspired the fictional character Zorro. Of course, a bunch of his ranch hands are absolutely going to believe that El Diablo has returned and so start to leave his employment. And, of course that means that there has to be an explanation a trio of smart amateur detectives can figure out. At least it doesn't end up being the work of an old lighthouse keeper who would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids.

However, Lynds trawls a lot of cultural heritage into this one and makes it feel comfortable. This is California, which the young English teenager in me knew was American but gradually realised was formerly Spanish and Native American. Lynds acknowledges that history and spins details that go back to the Spanish era, like the fiesta parade in Santa Carla, and, before that, to before the white man showed up, like the old Indian legends about Moaning Valley. He also includes a more recent set of traditions, so there are also ranches, prospectors and rodeo riders. It was a heady mixture for me forty years ago when I hadn't travelled further west than Devon and it still feels evocative to my fifty-year-old self a state east in Arizona, where I've now seen a lot of these traditions.

If the setting is the novel's greatest success, then the set of plot coincidences that keep the story moving is its worst point. I doubt I saw any of those as a kid, but they're often glaring as an adult; not least, the involvement of the United States Navy. Sure, Lynds telegraphed that early on with a note about the Navy doing manouevers a couple of times a year in the Channel Islands, which are now a national park, but how they tie into the story later feels rather forced. Bear in mind, it's not just that the Navy are there doing stuff, though that's enough. It's what they're doing in addition to all the other things in play in the same place. It gets to be a little much.

In-between is the actual mystery. The boys have to use both brains and brawn this time out, which is welcome and some of the scenes reminded me of films. The claustrophobia in the fiesta parade, in which the boys catch sight of the mysterious man with an eyepatch who they also encountered on the way down Devil Mountain, reminds of the parade in 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. A scene in which the boys crucially locate a second entrance to El Diablo's Cave seemed reminiscent of 'The Goonies'. While Ray Bradbury's book had been released before this, the movies came after so the resemblance is likely coincidence but highlights how this taps into a particular zeitgeist.

All in all, it's a decent first time out for "William Arden" and, while I'm eager to dive into the final outing for series creator Robert Arthur, 'The Mystery of the Talking Skull', this hasn't remotely put me off continuing on into the contributions of other authors. At some point, the series is going to feel a little off, if my memory is sound, but it's telling me that that won't happen until I progress firmly into the twenties. This is book ten. There's plenty of time yet. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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