|
Random House
Mystery Puzzles & Find Your Fate
The Three Investigators' Book of Mystery Puzzles
In the early 1980's, Random House
began expanding The Three Investigators series beyond the standard stories
published since 1964. The first such expansion was The Three Investigators'
Book of Mystery Puzzles, published in 1982 in paperback only.
The book was written by Barbara McCall with cover art and internal illustrations
by Anthony Rao. Keeping with the current series format, the book's
dimensions were 5 1/8" x 7 9/16" and the now standard keyhole design was
used on the cover and spine. At only 64 pages, however, the book
was very thin, making for a much smaller than usual spine keyhole.
The most unique aspect of the
Book
of Mystery Puzzles is that it is the only Three Investigators book
that was intended to be used and then discarded; there is no story, making
the book almost useless after its puzzles were completed. Because
of this, the Book of Mystery Puzzles is difficult to find in even
poor condition, let alone in fine condition with none of the puzzles completed.
Prices tend to be somewhat high, usually more than $70.00 if the condition
is good with a few puzzles worked and occasionally over $100.00 for a completely
"clean" copy. Although that is a great deal of money, I personally
think the Book of Mystery Puzzles prices are on the low side, considering
just how rare this book is and how much is paid for far more readily available
titles. Perhaps for the average Three Investigators collector, the
Book
of Mystery Puzzles just really isn't that desirable or useful.
Find Your Fate
Random House’s second expansion of
The Three Investigators series came in 1985, with the introduction of the
Find
Your Fate Mystery books #1 The Case of the Weeping Coffin and #2 The
Case of the Dancing Dinosaur. Patterned after the successful
Choose
Your Own Adventure format, the Find Your Fate books allowed
the reader to make choices during the story, thereby creating different
outcomes. Interestingly, the Find Your Fate series was not
exclusive to The Three Investigators, featuring other genres and characters,
such as fantasy stories with The Thundercats. Because of this, book
numbers 3 - 6 do not feature The Three Investigators. The boys did
return, however, for two additional titles: #7 The Case of the House
of Horrors (1986) and #8 The Case of the Savage Statue (1987).
All four Three Investigators Find
Your Fate books were simultaneously published in both Paperback and Reinforced
Library Binding (RLB) Editions (the RLB binding is similar to the GLB binding,
but with a different emblem
on the back cover). Both editions featured identical pictorial
cover art and were profusely illustrated, breaking Random House’s current
"no illustrations" rule. Both editions also had the Find Your
Fate symbol on the top-center of the cover, but the Paperback Edition
also used the familiar keyhole symbol on the spine. Dimensions: Paperback
Edition 5 1/8" x 7 9/16", RLB Edition 5 1/2" x 7 7/8".
To my knowledge, both editions of
all four Find Your Fate Mystery books were only ever available as First
Printings. Like all other Three Investigators books published after
1973, printing information can be found on the copyright page numberline.
When it comes to collecting, the first three titles are fairly easy to find in paperback (at very reasonable
prices), but the fourth title, as well as all four in RLB Edition, can
be very difficult to acquire.
Home << Previous | Next >>
This page last updated on 02-Sep-03
|
