With a reluctant helping hand from film director Alfred Hitchcock, no less
The Secret of Terror Castle is the first case for the Three Investigators — aka Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews, teenage boys living in Southern California circa 1964. Mastermind Jupiter has recently won a contest that earned him 30 days of access to a Rolls Royce and chauffeur, convenient since none of the boys are old enough to drive yet.
Somehow Jupiter finagles Alfred Hitchcock into hiring them to find a haunted house for him where he can film his next picture. Even more conveniently, there’s a likely location nearby, the former home of a silent film star whose career was ruined when talking movies revealed he spoke in a high-pitched lisp. No one has been able to stay for more than an hour inside the house since the disgraced movie star’s mysterious disappearance, as spooky sounds of a phantom organ and uncontrollable feelings of terror cause them to flee. The boys need to make sure it’s really haunted and plan their own visit to the “Terror Castle.” Is it really haunted, and if so by what — or whom?
I loved these books growing up, ranking them just below Trixie Belden and ahead of Nancy Drew. This debut was first published in 1964, so the series and I were born at the same time (no need to speculate on who has aged better, thank you very much). Reading it as an adult, there is nothing scary or spooky about the story, but I still loved the Three Investigators’ Rube Goldberg-esque “office” arrangements in the junkyard of Jupiter’s Uncle Titus. There are lots of those little details that really spoke to children growing up in an era without CGI or fancy special effects to create realistic paranormal atmospheres. We did it with our own brains, kids!
I probably gave this one a half-star extra just for nostalgia, as the ending was easy to figure out at my advanced age. But now that I’ve located a source for the whole series, I will keep reading and hope the magic never dims so much that they are no longer appealing.
An American Bluestocking 