Unravel the enigmas of Robert Arthur in this second volume of a landmark two-volume collection. The art of the twist, the quiet chill, the truth just beneath the surface - twenty classic mysteries from a master storyteller.
Known to many as the creator of The Three Investigators, the classic juvenile mystery series that shaped generations of readers, Arthur honed his craft through decades of writing suspense fiction for adults. In Mysteries, his talent for plot, misdirection, and narrative surprise is on full display. Readers will join detectives, amateur sleuths, and reluctant heroes in unraveling crimes that range from the subtly strange to the deeply unsettling.
In "A Very Natural Murder," a visit to the Maine coast ends in an elegant twist on justice; in "Larceny and Old Lace," theft is reimagined with wit and charm; and in "The Adventure of the Single Footprint," a modern-day Sherlock Holmes deciphers a chilling locked-room puzzle. Each story is a testament to Arthur's mastery of suspense, character, and form - and shows him as a virtuoso of the mystery genre.
Elizabeth Arthur - novelist, memoirist, and the author's daughter - assembled this collection with thoughtful introductions and annotations, offering background, context, and glimpses into her father's writing mind.
Included in this volume are five stories which have never previously been reprinted: "A Perfectly Natural Murder,""I, Murderer," "Button In The Mud,""Time Will Tell,"and "The Seven Wrong Clocks." This volume also contains a bonus story co-written by Robert Arthur and his wife Joan Vaczek.
Together, Fantasies and Mysteries reveal a writer of rare range and discipline. The same hand that could conjure eerie wonders could also lay bare the psychology of guilt. Whether Arthur is slipping something impossible into a quiet street or laying bare the motive behind a perfect crime, he remains, above all, a storyteller: generous, exacting, and quietly unforgettable.
Arthur, Elizabeth: - "Elizabeth Arthur is the daughter of Robert Arthur, the creator of The Three Investigators mystery series for young people. She is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K.Arthur has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book.In 2018 Arthur set out to conceive and co-write a rebooted, contemporary Three Investigators series - consisting of twenty-six new books - working with her husband Steven Bauer. The first six books were published by Hollow Tree Press on March 3 and June 3, 2025, and the last two will be published on March 3, 2027. Starting in September 2025, Hollow Tree Press will publish one new title a month."
Arthur, Robert: - Robert Arthur (1909-1969) is known worldwide for creating and writing the first ten books in the classic Three Investigators series, the iconic mystery series for young readers. In 1931, he moved to New York City where he wrote mysteries, fantasies, and horror stories for pulp magazines throughout the 1930s. His work from those years appeared in Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Detective Fiction Weekly, Argosy Weekly, Detective Story Magazine, Collier's, Bluebook, and Black Mask, among many other magazines. Later, he co-wrote and produced a radio show called The Mysterious Traveler that aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System between 1944 and 1952 and that won an Edgar Award for Best Radio Drama from The Mystery Writers of America in 1953. In 1959, Arthur moved to Hollywood where he worked in television, writing scripts for The Twilight Zone and working as a story editor, show runner, and scriptwriter for Alfred Hitchcock's TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He also started to ghost-edit a series of "AlfredHitchcock" anthologies for adults and children. In 1963, he left Hollywood and moved to Cape May, New Jersey, where he created The Three Investigators. The Secret of Terror Castle and The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot were published in 1964 by Random House, and Arthur wrote eight more Three Investigators novels before his early death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 2, 1969. After his death, his publisher arranged for other writers to continue writing stories based on his characters and setting. Three Investigators books were published in Australia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Bangladesh, Italy, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia as well as in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and throughout the Spanish-speaking world. By the time the last English-language-original Three Investigators book was published in the late 1980s, there were forty-three titles, some of which had been translated into over twenty languages. Robert Arthur's own ten novels were reissued in English, by Hollow Tree Press in 2024, on the 60th anniversary of the first publication of The Secret of Terror Castle.
