The Three Investigators is an American juvenile detective book series first published as Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. It was created by Robert Arthur Jr., who believed involving a famous person such as movie director Alfred Hitchcock would attract attention. Random House is the U.S. publisher and still has some of the rights to the books. Other rights are possessed by the heirs of Robert Arthur, Jr. and the German publisher Kosmos. The characters known as the "Three Investigators" are three boys named Jupiter Jones, Peter Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews. As the series has become very popular in Germany, over 200 books have been produced directly for the German market.
Most of the novels cover some sort of mysterious events that seem to be supernatural at first (e.g. an ancient Egyptian mummy that appears to be whispering) but are ultimately explained scientifically.
Original editions
The original series was published from 1964 to 1987 and comprised 43 finished books, one unfinished story (The Mystery of the Ghost Train) and four Find Your Fate books. Between 1989 and 1990 Random House published the Three Investigators Crimebusters series.
Books number 1 to 9 and 11 were written by the creator, Robert Arthur, who also specified ideas for a few of the other stories. Arthur had been an editor for several book collections attributed to Alfred Hitchcock. The other authors were William Arden (Dennis Lynds), Nick West (Kin Platt), Mary Virginia Carey and Marc Brandel (born Marcus Beresford). All of the authors wrote their own introductions and epilogues, which were dictated purportedly by Hitchcock and later in the series a fictional writer, Hector Sebastian, who supposedly recorded the adventures of the Three Investigators from their words. The illustrators in the series began with Harry Kane and Ed Vebell and include Jack Hearne, Herb Mott, Stephen Marchesi, Robert Adragna and William A. ("Bill") Dodge.
For the original series, the specific ages of the investigators were never revealed, but contextual information indicates that they were likely 13 or 14 years old. They were not old enough to drive a car legally, but were said to be just a few years younger than their nemesis Skinny Norris, who had a driver's license from a state where the required age for a license was younger. On one occasion, it was mentioned that Pete was part of the high-school wrestling team. In the later Crimebusters series, it was stated once that the Three Investigators team was initiated when the boys were 13.
The investigators were typically introduced to a mystery by a client or by finding something unusual accidentally in the junkyard of Jupiter's Uncle Titus Jones and Aunt Mathilda, who had a salvage business. The boys encountered baffling, sometimes misleading, clues and danger before finally solving the mystery. The series had one major theme: however strange, mystical, or even supernatural a particular phenomenon may seem at first, it is capable of being traced to human agency with the determined application of reason and logic. This theme was compromised on four occasions by Carey: in The Mystery of Monster Mountain, the boys encounter Bigfoot; in The Invisible Dog, she canonizes astral projection and dangles the possibility of a "phantom priest"; in The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar, a woman has genuine prophetic dreams; and in the final book of the original run, The Mystery of the Cranky Collector, a young woman's ghost returns to haunt her former employer's mansion.
Most mysteries were solved by Jupiter Jones, a supreme logician who implicitly used the Occam's Razor principle: that the simplest and most rational explanation should be preferred to an explanation which requires additional assumptions. The boys were able to solve their mysteries with relatively few resources: they generally had little more than a telephone, bicycles, access to a library and—with reference to the Hollywood setting of the series—a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce (which Jupiter wins the use of in the first book).
In the first book, The Secret of Terror Castle, Jupiter bluffs his way into the office of director Alfred Hitchcock and makes a deal with him that if the Investigators can find him a haunted house to use as a location for his next movie, Hitchcock will introduce the story of their adventures. Hitchcock agrees, not expecting them to succeed; but at the end of the book is impressed with the boys' investigation and not only introduces the book but also refers several other future clients to them in subsequent novels. The last chapter of each book was usually an epilogue in which the investigators sat with Alfred Hitchcock (and later, Hector Sebastian), reviewing the mystery and revealing the deductions through the clues discussed earlier in the book.
In 1989, Random House revamped the series, naming it The 3 Investigators—Crimebusters Series. The investigators were now 17 years old, could drive cars and were much more independent. The stories continued to include an abundance of detective work, but with the addition of more action. The series was well received but was halted during 1990, when legal disagreements between Random House and the heirs of the Arthur estate could not be resolved. By 2005, the disagreements were still not settled.
Eleven novels were published in the CrimeBusters series, which was initiated by one of the series' authors, William Arden, pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, who wrote the Dan Fortune mystery series for adults by the pseudonym Michael Collins. The other authors were: H. William Stine and wife Megan Stine, G.H. Stone (Gayle Lynds), William MacCay, Marc Brandel and Peter Lerangis. Random House has reprinted several of the original books as two paperback reprint series, partly to assure their legal rights.
Between 1964 and 1990, Random House published a total of 56 books. After the discontinuation of the series in 1990, a German author team began writing new books under the commission of the Franckh Kosmos publishing house in 1993. In 2011, three previously unpublished novels by the US authors Peter Lerangis, Megan and H. William Stine and G. H. Stone were published in Germany.
Premise
The Three Investigators are a junior detective team that initially came together because of a mental exercise club. They live in Rocky Beach, a fictional coastal town between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. In some of their cases, the boys are supported by Alfred Hitchcock, the chauffeur Worthington, and the police inspectors Reynolds and Cotta.
“We Investigate Anything” is The Three Investigators' trademark slogan on their business card. Most often, Jupiter is the one to hand over the card in a fitting moment to see the clients’ reactions to the three question marks. Often, that reaction is a joke, with the clients asking whether the question marks mean the investigators doubt their own abilities. Jupiter usually retorts something like: “That's our symbol. [...] The question marks stand for mysteries unsolved, riddles unanswered, puzzles of any kind. So we use it as our trademark. We investigate any kind of mystery.”
To prove themselves, The Three Investigators usually have a lot of persuading to do in the beginning, as the clients often mistrust their abilities because the investigators are so young.
In their first cases, The Three Investigators also provide, apart from their business card, a letter of recommendation from the Police Department of Rocky Beach signed by Chief Samuel Reynolds. It says: "The holder of this badge is a junior volunteer assistant to the Police Department of Rocky Beach. The authority advocates any support from third parties."
Jupiter
Jupiter "Jupe" Jones, First Investigator—A former child actor named "Baby Fatso", although he hates it when people mention this. Jupiter is intelligent and stocky, and has a remarkable memory and deductive skills. Jupiter's parents (professional ballroom dancers) died in an accident when he was four years old. Although “An Ear for Danger” mentions a car accident as their cause of death, in the episode “... das leere Grab” (German only), they are said to have disappeared following a plane crash. Jupiter lives with his uncle and aunt, Titus and Mathilda Jones, who manage a scrapyard.
Jupiter's past acting ability benefits him frequently in mysteries because he can act older than he is, perform imitations of people when necessary and act less intelligent to extract information from potential suspects.
Jupiter is a prolific reader and inventor and frequently invents a device that simplifies solving a mystery. Jupiter has a knack for interpreting clues to solve otherwise unsolvable mysteries. He also likes to play pranks on the other two investigators. Because of his intellectual side, Jupe is adept at using big words and frequently uses them to his advantage, particularly to seem older, annoy Pete, and startle adults. Jupe hates to dismiss an unsolved mystery, which frequently means that he drags Bob and Pete along for the ride.
Peter
Peter "Pete" Crenshaw, Second Investigator—Pete is an athletic youth who dislikes dangerous situations, but is nonetheless reliable as the "action member" of the team. Pete loves and cares for animals, and is fond of uttering the exclamation "Gleeps!". His father works as a film technician for special effects in Hollywood.
Pete is a frequent companion of Jupiter on stake-outs and other field trips, particularly in the earlier mysteries, when Bob is unavailable. While he may not have the intellectual ability of Jupiter, Pete is nonetheless considered as an equal in the stories and is able to point out Jupiter's own shortcomings (usually in a comical fashion). He is also capable of making deductions and sometimes serves as the clue-bearer instead of Bob. He has an excellent sense of direction, as in The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot. Most of the rest were also released in the following years by Lademann.
Finland
46 books were published in Finland by Gummerus between 1975 and 1990 under the title "Alfred Hitchcock 3 Etsivää". Translations include all the 43 books from the original series, but in slightly different order than in US, 2 from the Find Your Fate series (#44 The Case of the Weeping Coffin and #45 The Case of the Dancing Dinosaur) and 1 from the Crimebusters series (#46 Hot Wheels).
France
In France, the original nine books were published during the 1970s by the Bibliothèque verte collection of books for young readers under the title "Les Trois Jeunes Détectives" ("The Three young detectives").. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the series continued. As a whole, 37 volumes (including four of the Crimebusters series) has been published.
Germany
The Three Investigators books have always been very popular in Germany. In 1968 the Kosmos publishing company started to publish translations of the 43 original books which they retitled Die drei ??? (Die drei Fragezeichen, meaning "The Three Question Marks"). Kosmos also renamed Jupiter Jones as "Justus Jonas" and shortened Peter Crenshaw's name to "Peter Shaw". Bob Andrews retained his original name. In 1993 Kosmos started to publish new written books by German authors.
In 1979 the German publisher Europa started a radio drama based on the books, as published by Kosmos. All in all, as of September 2024, this resulted in 234 books (usually 6 books per year, 3 during spring and 3 during autumn) and 229 radio dramas published. In 2005, a litigation between Kosmos and Europa disallowed the latter to use the German names introduced by Kosmos. Subsequently, Europa published a nine episode radio drama named "DiE DR3i" between 2005 and 2007. "DiE DR3i" were mostly identical to "Die drei ???" and they also used the same German voice-actors, but changed the disallowed names to their English originals. "DiE Dr3i" were stopped when Europa and Kosmos reached an agreement and "Die drei ???" resumed again.
Taped radio dramas (Hörspiele) of the novels have been especially popular in Germany with most of them having been certified Gold or Platinum by the German Federal Association of Music Industry. In total, the radio dramas have sold more than 45 million copies and the books about 16 million copies in Germany (2013). A study conducted in 2009 by the series' publisher Europa suggests that nowadays, most fans are between 20 and 45 years of age.
The radio actors, who have been narrating the plays since 1979, toured the country multiple times to perform plays in front of a live-audience. They broke their own Guinness World Record when performing Phonophobia – Symphony of Fear in front of 20,000 people at Berlin Waldbühne during 2014.
In the booklet of the German audio play The Mystery of the Invisible Dog, the episode upon which it was based is credited erroneously to Nick West. Moreover, in Germany there are different revised editions of The Mystery of the Scar-faced Beggar: one using Alfred Hitchcock as their patron, one using Alfred Hitchcock and Hector Sebastian, and another one using only Hector Sebastian (in Germany renamed as "Albert Hitfield").
New English-language Three Investigators titles were released during 2005 for the first time since 1990. The German 'American-English' series included the release of Poisoned E-Mail and The Curse of the Cell Phone. As of May 2008, a total of seven German stories had been translated and published in this format, and an eighth title was planned for publication during October 2008.
In 2006, following the example of “Die drei ???”/"The Three Investigators", a detective series specifically for girls titled “” was launched by publisher Franckh-Kosmos. In a similar way as the original, the book series contains stories about a teenage detective trio, only this time consisting of three girls; the stories take place in a big German city.
The band Jupiter Jones, formed in 2002, named themselves after the original name of the first detective Jupiter Jones (Justus Jonas in German). The rock band ("Carpathian Dog") from Cologne named themselves after a title of one episode ("Mystery of the Invisible Dog"). On the album “Bordsteinkantengeschichten” by the band , a long scream from the episode “Der seltsame Wecker” ("Mystery of the Screaming Clock") can be heard. The intro and outro of the album “Alles auf Schwarz” by the rock band from Hamburg are narrated by Oliver Rohrbeck in the role of Justus Jonas, but without mentioning Justus’ name. Techno musician and sound artist Phillip Sollmann adapted his pseudonym Efdemin from the character Mihai Eftimin in the episode "Die flammende Spur" ("The flaming trace").
Greece
In Greece, The Three Investigators have been published as Oi Treis Ntetektiv (Οι Τρεις Ντετέκτιβ) since 1990 by Psichogios Publications and earlier by others.
India
The Three Investigators books have been published in India, in addition to the original American versions, by the name of "Bal Secret Agent 555 Ranga, Ganga & Shirazi". Ranga is Pete, Ganga is Jupe and Shirazi is Bob. These were published by Khel Khiladi Prakashan, West Patel Nagar, Delhi during the 1970s.
Indonesia
The Three Investigators books have been published in Indonesia under the name of Trio Detektif. These were published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama (the biggest book publisher in Indonesia), Jakarta from the 1980s to 1990.
Italy
In Italy, the Three Investigators novels have been published in paperback form by Mondadori, during the 1970s and 1980s, within their Il giallo dei ragazzi series, which included the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and other juvenile sleuths' adventures. The cover author for the Three Investigators books was always Alfred Hitchcock, whereas the inner copyright notice correctly reported the real author (although saying "Text by ...").
Japan
In Japan, the series was published three times.
From 1969 to 1971, 4 books were published by Nihon Publishing.
In 1976, 6 books were published by Kaiseisha (Originally, 10 books were planned to be published). They were illustrated by Ken Ishikawa and Dynamic Productions.
From 1987 to 1988, 10 books were published by Kaiseisha, yet again. They were not exactly the same as the publication planned for 1976, and 2 from the Find Your Fate series.
Latin
The German demand for the adventures of The Three Investigators produced another offshoot in 2011. Ulrich Krauße translated The Curse of the Dragon into Latin with three German Latin teachers working as proofreaders. Krauße's translation, titled De Tribus Investigatoribus et Fato Draconis, was popular in Germany among students of Latin.
Lithuania
The Three Investigators books have been published in Lithuania and were popular among teenagers.
Norway
23 books were published in Norway by Forlagshuset between 1969 and 1981 "Alfred Hitchcock og de tre Detektivene".
Pakistan
Thirteen stories of The Three Investigators have been published in Pakistan, in Urdu, as Teen nanhay suraghrasaan () in 1977/78 by Ferozsons Publishers. They have also been published in the monthly Taleem-o-Tarbiat magazine for children. The names of the characters are "Umber" (, Jupiter Jones), "Naseem" (, Pete) and "Aaqib" (, Bob). The name of their Mercedes Benz driver is Allahdad (). They live in Karimabad. Umber is tall and lanky as opposed to Jupiter's character, who is stocky. Naseem, like Pete, is the most athletic of all. The translators are Saleem Ahmed Siddiqui and Maqbool Jahangir. They have done a good job adapting the stories to match Pakistani culture and geography.
Poland
Sixty-one original stories (including Crimebusters) have been published in Poland (by Siedmiorog), where they were recently still very popular.
Portugal
In Portugal, the Three Investigators novels started to be published in hard cover edition by Clássica Editora, within Os melhores livros juvenis series, which included other juvenile adventures by authors such as Erich Kästner, Enid Blyton and E.W. Hildick.
The first book published was The Secret of Terror Castle in the 1970s (second edition in 1978).
The cover author for the Three Investigators books was always Alfred Hitchcock. In the first editions the inner copyright notice correctly reported the real author (although saying "written in cooperation with...").
Russia
The books have been popular among teenagers in Russia under the name of 'Три сыщика' (Three Detectives). It was a part of series 'Детский детектив' (juvenile detectives). Published between 1992 and 1998.
Slovakia
The books have also been very popular among children and teenagers in Slovakia where the books were published by Mladé Letá under the name 'Traja pátrači'. have been translated from the original, Crimebuster and German series, but not in order of original release.
Southeast Asia
In the French, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Italian version of the series, the books were at one time published with Alfred Hitchcock listed as their author. The same error was made in some German paperback editions published at the beginning of the 1980s.
Similarly, all British Armada paperback editions of the title The Mystery of the Moaning Cave are credited erroneously to Robert Arthur. Moreover, the British series reversed the order of #42 and #43, meaning that the Armada original series ends with Wreckers' Rock.
Spain
In Spain, The Mystery of the Moaning Cave, The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow, The Secret of the Crooked Cat, The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon, The Mystery of Monster Mountain as well as The Mystery of the Headless Horse are erroneously credited to Robert Arthur. The new Latin-American edition has the name of Los tres detectives instead of Los Tres Investigadores, which was used in Spain for earlier editions. Catalan translations were also published.
Sweden
All the original 43 were published in Sweden under the name Alfred Hitchcock och Tre Deckare. They were published as part of the youth fiction series from publisher B. Wahlströms.
Adaptations, References and 2025 Series
in 1984 the first two stories from the series were adapted into heavily abridged audioplays by Edward Kelsey and released by Rainbow Communications; both were directed by Tony Bilbow.
In Germany, the franchise has also been adapted into audioplays and graphic novels.
In 2007, a Three Investigators movie, The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island, was released in Germany, starring Chancellor Miller as Jupiter, Nick Price as Pete, and Cameron Monaghan as Bob. It was followed in 2009 by The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle. Although adopting the same titles as two of the novels, and some of the characters, the stories in the films are significantly different from those in the books on which they are based.
The 2021 computer game ELEX II features the mission 'Hitch and the Three Investigators', an homage to the book series.
In 2020 Elizabeth Arthur (daughter of series creator Robert Arthur Jr.) announced a continuation of the series to be set in contemporary times. Further details revealed the series to be a set of twenty-six novels (one for each letter of the alphabet), set two years after The Secret of Terror Castle. The books are thematically linked as one larger arc. The first three books were made available in eBook format in March 2025.