Book Review- The Three Investigator by Robert Arthur

                                                     BOOK REVIEW

      THE MYSTERY OF THE GREEN GHOST(The Three Investigator)

 

AUTHOR: ROBERT ARTHUR Jr.

GENRE: MYSTERY FICTION

 

STORY LINE

The story revolves around three investigator, Jupiter Jones , Pete Crenshaw , Bob Andrews. They use spare time to solve any mysteries that comes their way. The boys lived in Rocky Beach, California, a town on the Pacific coast. Their investigations are held in the secret Headquarters which is thirty foot mobile home owned by Titus Jones (Jupiter’s uncle). Jupiter is stocky- people usually call him fatty. He has a round face which can make him look like a stupid, but this misleading because he has an excellent mind. Pete is tall and very athletic. He’s Jupiter’s right hand man at trailing suspects and carrying out other dangerous exploits. Bob is in charge of collecting background data. He has a part time job in local library, which makes a vast array of reference books available to him. Once Bob and Pete came across an old mansion in the town which looks haunted. When the curiosity of both reaches the peak, They entered the old mansion suddenly they heard  a somebody screaming. At first they suspected it’s a ghost because there were already rumors about the presences of green ghost in the old mansion. They both were frightened and ran out. There were a group of men accompanied them, all of them entered the mansion once again and they encountered an old green ghost.  

                                                              The very next day Bob and Pete shared the story with Jupiter. The three young investigators started their investigation about the old mansion. They could find many newspaper cuttings regarding the old mansion. Each newspaper had different stories about the ghost. The common thing with all paper is that they all believed that it is the ghost of old Mathias Green. According to the story in the paper its is sixty or seventy years ago, old Mathias Green was a skipper in China trade, he got into some kind of trouble and had to leave China. He came back with a beautiful Chinese princess as wife. Another story says he quarreled with his only relative, a sister in law (Lydia Green) in San Francisco and came down here to live. The old Mathias own the big mansion in Pacific town and he died by breaking his neck in mansion. So it is believed that his ghost exist in the old Mansion. Arthur gradually introduce other character Chief Reynold- police officer , Mr. Harold Carlson – lawyer and cousin of Lydia Green , Chang- great grand son of Mathias Green.

As part of investigation chief took the boys once again to mansion they all meetup Mr. Carlson. They found a secret room with coffin, when they opened the coffin they found the skeleton of Mrs. Green with a ghost pearl in it. Gradually the Arthur leaves many question in the mind of reader. They become curious to know what happened to Mrs. Green why she is not buried? After all this Bob get a call from Lydia (she want to meet him). Bob and Pete leaves to San Francisco for investigation, meanwhile Jupiter stayed at Rocky Beach. Chang shared his family story with Bob and Pete when came to receive them from Airport. At last they found out that there is no such ghost it was a play put up by Mr. Carlson to hide ghost pearl from others. The ghost pearl is believed to have some supernatural power which keeps  people alive for years and he was also found of the property. Bob , Pete and Jupiter came to know about this with the help of Alfred Hitchcock.

 

 CONCLUSION: Robert Arthur , At first he made everyone one believed that there is a existence of ghost but later revels that it was just a play of Mr. Carlson (he was projecting a ghost image in the black background through his flashlight). Each chapter the author leaves some mysterious aspects and clues which had a connection with later climax. The author used simple language and is it very convenient to read.