With our last shipment came a book I ordered for myself called The Queen’s Awards, 1948, a collection of award-winning stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. I wanted this particular book from that particular year for one particular story, Robert Arthur’s “The Adventure of the Single Footprint.”

I had been looking for it ever since I read up on Robert Arthur recently from various websites. I knew him from my elementary days when I started reading the detective series Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators. With all due respect, after discovering The Three Investigators, I had to stop reading Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys (but, of course, I never stopped being a fan). It almost felt like taking the training wheels off of your bicycle. Jupiter, Pete, and Bob were more interesting characters and their mysteries more engaging and, if I may say, more mysterious. I thought back then, These were real detectives! They had their own business cards at the very least. Alfred Hitchcock himself introduced every book! (Many of the “Alfred Hitchcock presents…” books were actually ghostwritten by Robert Arthur.)

Robert Arthur created The Three Investigators and wrote the first how many books. I bought and borrowed every one I could find. Unfortunately, the books are out of print. They were brought back a few years ago, but Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t part of the story anymore. I hear though that the books are still big in Germany and new stories are still being written and released there. I hear also that a The Three Investigators movie is coming out next year but I do not think it is going to be released here.

For fans who are reading this. These are some of the sites I visited:
http://www.threeinvestigators.net/
http://www.threeinvestigatorsbooks.com/RobertArthurQuotes.html
http://www.elizabetharthur.org/bio/rarthur.html
(The photo of Robert Arthur above was taken from his daughter’s website, elizabetharthur.org)

Also, if you like mysteries and are interested in reading award-winning stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine from some sixty years ago, let me know. I would be glad to share. By the way, according to the introduction to his award-winning story, Robert Arthur was born on Corregidor Island, Philippines in 1909. Imagine that.