Dear Readers,
I've always had a soft spot for The Prisoner of Zenda - mistaken identities, duels in torchlit halls, dungeons and doubles and romance in the shadow of power. So when the idea arose to place The Three Investigators inside a modern remake of the 1937 film, I leapt at the chance. Or rather, Jupiter did.
As you'll remember, at the start of their freshman year at Rocky Beach High, all incoming students had to choose a sport to concentrate on. Jupiter chose fencing – and in The Mystery of the Ruritanian Riddle that long-ago choice comes to glorious fruition.
Jupiter is pleased and proud when his skill with a foil lands him a role in a movie – albeit one he's given because the original actor has disappeared. Per Jorgensen – playing both leads in the movie – thinks Jupiter will be perfect as a swordsman-prince in a castle borrowed from movie history.
The other boy – a Bulgarian teenage actor – has supposedly left to join a New Age festival in the Nevada desert. But not everything is as it seems. It soon becomes clear he's been kidnapped, and a loudmouthed mogul named Bogdan Goranov - who just happens to own a castle, a production company, and a suite of former Eastern Bloc bodyguards - is at the heart of it all.
There's more here than glitz. Goranov is a parody of everything Jupiter can't stand: bullying, posturing, power without conscience. And in the rescue attempt that follows - during a lavish party, no less - Pete and Bob are smuggled into the castle in wicker wine hampers, while Jupiter and Mallory don waiter uniforms, navigate a blackout, and end up in a dungeon with danger all around – and with Bob, Pete, and the missing boy locked behind a heavy wooden door.
But while I loved the plot as it unfolded - and I think you will, too - I was also drawn in by the idea that Ruritania, in the original book, might be re-imagined as a part of modern-day Eastern Europe.
Since my mother's father was a Hungarian diplomat who defected to the United States in the middle of the Second World War, I grew up with a strong awareness of what had happened to Eastern Europe under Soviet rule. I imagined that the Polish director of a remake of The Prisoner of Zenda might see it as a vehicle for exploring some of that history.
That aside, this is the book where Mallory truly begins to see Jupiter not just as the brain behind the team, but as something more. And in the end, it's Jupiter who takes up a sword in a fight that's anything but staged.
A romantic adventure. A Cold War ghost story. A tribute to old films and new ways of imagining life as part of The Three Investigators. I hope you'll enjoy this one; it was a lot of fun to write. Not least because I was able to lift the clever gimmick that lets The Three Investigators plunge the Zenda dungeon into darkness at the crucial moment from a YA story written by my father.
I did the same thing many books ago, in The Mystery of the Dramaturical Dagger - though in that case, Dad’s story was written for adults. In DD, the story that lent the novel the gimmick with the dagger was "The Blow From Heaven.” In RR, the story which lent the book the gimmick with the lights was written especially for a juvenile anthology called “Solve-Them-Yourself-Mysteries” and was called “The Mystery of the Four Quarters.”
Warmly,
Elizabeth Arthur
Cover Art By Pashur House
Book Description For The Mystery of the Ruritanian Riddle:
In the eighteenth book of a 26-book story arc, when a Bulgarian teenager playing a fencer in a remake of the 1937 film The Prisoner of Zenda goes missing, Per Jorgensen, the movie's star and a friend of The Three Investigators, asks Jupiter to take the boy's place. At an auction in Burbank where movie weapons from the 1952 version of the story are on the block, the team crosses paths with Bogdan Goranov, a loud, wealthy Bulgarian who bullies his way through the auction, angering Jupiter.
Soon after, The Three Investigators learn that the teenager hasn't run off to a New Age festival, as certain parties wanted them to believe, but has, in fact, been kidnapped. The main suspect is a Bulgarian gangster named Stoichkov, but as the investigation progresses, the team begins to suspect Goranov may be involved.
Goranov, it turns out, lives in a castle modeled after the one from the 1937 film and owns a Hollywood production company, Lemon Tree Productions. When Krsto Pavlovic, a Serbian wine distributor and fan of The Three Investigators, unwittingly reveals the kidnapped boy's location in Goranov's dungeon, the team devises a daring plan to rescue him.
At one of Goranov's lavish parties, Jupiter, Mallory, Pete, and Bob find themselves in a tight spot. Will the armed guard at the entrance gate discover Pete and Bob hidden at the bottom of large wicker wine hampers? Can Jupiter and Mallory act the part of waiters at the party? Will Goranov remember them from the auction? As the stakes rise and the lights go out, the rescue mission culminates in a swordfight, starring Jupiter, that could mean life or death for everyone involved.
Join Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Mallory as they face a villain who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and put their wits - and their courage - to the ultimate test. Will they make it out in time—or become unwilling stars in a show with no second act?
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