The Mystery of the Dramaturgical Dagger, The Mystery of the Existential Envoy, and The Mystery of the Factitious Falconer are now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble as paperbacks, hardcovers and e-books.
I think you’re going to like these three. They mark the movement of the books into the series proper.
The first three books needed to establish the setting, tone, and backstory of the new series, (as well as the backgrounds and personalities of all the major characters), but at the start of The Mystery of the Dramaturgical Dagger we’re off and running, with a story in which the reader is kept guessing about who the villain is until the very end. The Mystery of the Existential Envoy is a real ocean-going adventure, and by the end of The Mystery of the Factitious Falconer, Jupiter has started to catch up with Pete and Bob in appreciating Mallory’s strengths and talents.
Chapter One: A Letter From Daman Duwalia
Bob Andrews glanced at his watch. His lesson on the climbing wall in the Rocky Beach High School gym was over, and soon he'd be on his way to the Jones Salvage Yard and a meeting with his best friends and Three Investigators colleagues Jupiter Jones and Pete Crenshaw. Today they were going to be discussing the possibilities for their next investigation, and he wanted to be on time.
Although Bob and his friends wouldn't officially enter high school for another six weeks or so, they'd already been asked to sign up for a sport for their freshman year, and Bob had picked climbing. This wasn't just because he had a good frame for it, but because, a few years before, he'd broken his leg in multiple places while climbing alone, and he didn't want that experience to make him afraid of climbing in the future.
Even so, he'd decided that roped climbing, with a partner, was probably a good idea. Bob took off his helmet and stared up at the wall. It sure didn't look like real rock. In fact, it looked just like what it was - a highly engineered irregular vertical surface - mottled brown and gray, made of fiberglass, resin, and metal, covered with ridges, bumps, and indentations, places to grab or to put your toe. It offended Bob in some obscure way - did it have to be so ugly? - and was certainly nothing that anyone would mistake for the real thing.
"Great first lesson," Coach Fogerty said. "Come on over to the locker and I'll issue you equipment for the summer."
"O.K., Coach," Bob said. He stood coiling a sturdy nylon rope, one end of which had been attached to a harness he wore. The rope had been looped through an anchor high up near the ceiling, and Coach Fogerty had held the other end. Bob had just learned this was called being "on belay" - a way to prevent a climber from falling and getting injured. He'd only gotten twenty feet off the ground this time, but he'd felt good.
"Did that harness fit you O.K.?" Coach Fogerty asked.
"Yes, sir," Bob said.
"Not too tight? Not too slack?"
Bob grinned. The coach sounded as if he'd just read Goldilocks.
"It was just right, Coach," Bob said.
"Good," Coach Fogerty said. He rummaged in the locker. "Now here's a chalk bag for keeping your fingers and hands dry; you've already got the rope and helmet. And here's a bag of anchors and chocks. And a second harness."
"Thanks," Bob said. "And thanks for your help."
Rocky Beach High had an outstanding summer athletic program for all students, including recent graduates and those who'd be students in the fall, and Bob had thought it would be good to get a head start.
"My pleasure," Coach Fogerty said. "Good to meet you. Always glad to find a new climber. Have you got a climbing partner?"
"I don't know yet," Bob said. "Maybe. She's just moved to Rocky Beach from Scotland, but she used to climb there with her father. Right now, she's working for Jupiter's aunt and uncle at the Jones Salvage Yard. She's going to be a freshman at Rocky Beach High this fall, too."
When Bob had first gotten to the gym and met Coach Fogerty this morning, he'd told him a bit about Pete and Jupiter and their work as The Three Investigators. Coach Fogerty hadn't read any articles about their exploits, but he had seen the Salvage Yard - like everyone else in Rocky Beach. With its seven-foot-high wooden fence painted with colorful historical murals running completely around the Yard, and a set of filigreed wrought-iron gates guarding the entrance, it was a hard place to miss. Although he and Pete and Jupiter actually had missed it so far this summer - using "miss" in a different sense, of course! Their first three cases had all taken them to central California, and they'd agreed that it would nice if their next one let them stay at home.
"I look forward to meeting her," Coach Fogerty said, smiling. "She sounds interesting." Bob thanked the coach again, then headed for the locker room. He suspected he knew why the Coach had smiled, but unfortunately, although Bob was hoping he could persuade Mallory to go climbing with him - and not just because he needed a climbing partner for roped climbing but because he had a crush on her - he didn't think the feeling was mutual.
In the locker room, Bob showered, changed into his street clothes, and grabbed his backpack. Although he was heading to the Salvage Yard and he normally brought his laptop to his meetings with Pete and Jupiter, today he'd left it home. There was nothing in his backpack but a book his mother had just lent him - Darwin's Moral Mammals - and a manilla folder containing a bunch of e-mails he'd received in his role as Records and Research for The Three Investigators.
He'd held this position from the time he, Pete, and Jupiter had formed their firm, and he'd always enjoyed it - he was good at it, and his friends had always appreciated his work. However, six weeks before, when The Three Investigators' friend, mentor, and chronicler, the mystery writer Hector Sebastian, had moved to Wyoming, Bob had suddenly found himself not merely supplying case notes to a more experienced writer, but writing the reports from start to finish himself.
At the beginning of the summer, The Three Investigators had finally established a website. Bob had been posting the reports online, but although he'd worked hard on them, and Pete and Jupiter and his parents had all told him they were terrific, so far he'd been disappointed at how few other people seemed to have read them - especially because Bob had come up with what he considered the great idea of giving his case reports titles in alphabetical order.
Still, after their first case that summer, in which they'd uncovered a cache of hidden gold, two or three people had written wanting help with finding gold, and after their second case, in which the discovery of a forged letter had resulted in the unmasking of the villain, there had been several e-mails about possible document forgeries. The latest batch of e-mails was focused on counterfeit money, Bob thought with some amusement.
But while none of the inquiries had seemed likely to lead to an interesting new case, today he and his friends would weigh the options and decide which one had the most potential. He pulled his manilla folder and Darwin's Moral Mammals out of his backpack and stuffed his climbing gear in, then put the folder and the book on top.
He hadn't had time to crack the book, but Bob's mother was an evolutionary biologist who taught at Reedmore College, and she'd thought he might be interested in its thesis. She'd told him the book argued that moral behavior was hard-wired into human beings because evolution had made cooperation with other people desirable. She'd also said it looked at specific human emotions in order to show that, although each of them could do damage in excess, there were good reasons why each had evolved in the first place. Although he didn't have a scientific bone in his body, these ideas made sense to Bob.
Just then, the cellphone in his pocket rang loudly. He opened it to see the words "Three Investigators Headquarters." Jupiter was calling from the landline in the Salvage Yard.
"Jupe?" he said after he punched the button.
"Good morning, Records," Jupiter said. "Ramble and scramble."
"Wow!" Bob said. Ramble and scramble meant Bob should get to Headquarters - a banged-up mobile home trailer in the Jones Salvage Yard - as soon as he possibly could. Jupiter hadn't used the code in a while - he thought it was too juvenile, now - and besides, Bob would be arriving in almost no time anyway.
"What's up?" Bob asked.
"We've got a case. And you're going to like it," Jupiter said. "I don't know what kinds of inquiries you have in your manilla folder, but if you're still at home, you can leave it there. We won't be needing it. Someone pretty famous is interested in our services. And he's right here in Rocky Beach. For the summer, anyway. Or until he draws his last breath."
"Well, tell me! Who is he?" Bob asked.
"I can't," said Jupiter. "I promised Pete I'd let him tell you when you got here. But I thought I'd better warn you that Pete's about to bust a gut. He seems to feel that this is the most exciting thing that's happened in Rocky Beach since tall ships docked in its harbor."
"Can't you even give me a hint?" Bob said.
"I already have. Several, in fact," Jupiter said. "Just get here as soon as you can."
"I will," Bob said. "I'm at the high school, though. I just had my first climbing lesson. Is Mallory working today?"
"Yes," said Jupiter. "But this is no time to try to persuade her to go climbing with you at Palisade Point. We have more important things to do."
"I'll be right there," said Bob.
He punched his cellphone again and put it in his pocket, cinched his backpack tight, then shrugged it onto his shoulders. As he pedaled toward the Salvage Yard, he thought about what Jupiter had said. That someone pretty famous was interested in The Three Investigators' services - and that he was right here in Rocky Beach.
"For the summer, anyway," Jupiter had said. "Or until he draws his last breath."
Now, what on earth had that meant? Although Bob was hardly as good at puzzles as Jupiter was, he'd had some real successes at solving them in the past, and it would be great if he could figure out who this famous person was while on his way to join his friends. Was some famous person dying? And why was this person, whoever he was, only in Rocky Beach for the summer?
Or maybe that was the wrong way to tackle the problem. Maybe Bob should just consider the kind of person that Pete would be really excited about having the chance to work for.
Oh, well, it was too late now, Bob thought, as he caught sight of Green Gate One, biked past it, then turned into the Salvage Yard. Yes, Mallory was here, Bob confirmed, as he saw her bicycle parked by the front office. It meant she was working, and maybe later he'd have the chance to see her.
In the meantime, he found Pete and Jupiter waiting for him in the outdoor workshop, and the minute he saw them, he realized he was a bit disappointed that he wasn't going to have a chance to show them the inquiries he'd gotten in response to his case reports. One of these days it would be nice if they got a case solely because of his efforts to publicize their firm.
It was a hot and sunny day, and Jupiter sat in a green metal chair reading a book with stars and moons and suns on its cover, while Pete was kicking a small, round bag filled with sand into the air. When he saw Bob pull in, he kicked the bag high and caught it with his hand.
"Have you guessed who it is yet?" he called out excitedly as Bob brought his bike to a stop and jumped off. "He's just here for the summer! But I saw him once on the set of a movie my father worked on!"
"An actor?" asked Bob, surprised.
"A movie actor!" said Pete. "But this summer he's playing Romeo at the Rocky Beach Summer Theatre Festival!"
Although Pete seemed to feel that that was all Bob would need for him to guess who Pete was talking about, he had absolutely no idea.
Still, the reference to Romeo at least clarified for Bob that when Jupiter had said that Mr. Whoever-He-Was was in Rocky Beach for the summer, or until he drew his last breath, he had probably been referring to the fact that in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, Romeo died every night on stage. Bob hoped that Mr. Whoever-He-Was wasn't afraid he was going to die for real.
"Well, I still don't know who he is," Bob said, a little plaintively. "What movie did your father work on that he was in?"
"That was Jupe's clue!" Pete crowed. "When he said I thought this was the most exciting thing that's happened in Rocky Beach since tall ships docked in its harbor! It was the movie about the 18th-century British Navy. You remember! I think we talked about it sometime after we found out that one of Worthington's grandfathers had been a Lascar!"
By now, Bob was feeling seriously hot and bothered. What did Worthington's grandfather have to do with the guy who was playing Romeo? And anyway, wasn't the star of that movie some Indian actor named Raj Khan? As far as Bob could remember, Raj Khan must have been about fifty years old, and Romeo was supposed to be quite young.
"Just tell me," he said through gritted teeth.
"It's Daman Duwalia! The star of the Time Twist series!" Pete said triumphantly. "And guess what? Although he wrote a real letter to Jupiter, instead of sending an e-mail to you or our website, in his letter he said that he was impressed not only with the way we solved our cases, but with the way you wrote about them!"
All of a sudden, Bob's tension dissolved and he started grinning from ear to ear.
"Not really?" he said.
"Really," said Jupiter. "That's why Pete wanted us to tell you in person." He pulled a fancy-looking envelope out from underneath his book, extracted a letter from it, and handed the letter to Bob. "We've both read it twice, so there's no need to read it aloud. Just read it to yourself."
Bob sat down next to Jupiter, took the letter, unfolded it, and stared at it for a moment before he started reading.
Daman Duwalia! he thought. Though Bob hadn't seen any of the Time Twist films, he knew that Duwalia was already a star - a young Indian actor whose parents had worked in Bollywood before immigrating to California, where Daman had been born. He'd started acting himself at an early age, doing the usual goofy comedies when he was too young to do anything better, but then he'd been cast in a movie that had made him famous - and since the movie had had two sequels, he was now very famous indeed.
Still, this summer he was working at the Rocky Beach Summer Theatre Festival - a very old festival, well-known throughout the area for casting a mixture of professional actors and local talent, and whose building had recently undergone an extensive renovation. His letter said that the Rocky Beach production of Romeo and Juliet was, coincidentally, being directed by a woman named Madhuri Singh - also of Indian parentage, but born in London - and that both he and she had received threatening anonymous letters. The letters had been typed on a typewriter, not printed by a computer. In addition, both she and Daman had had what he called "really strange experiences" - he in his dressing room, she in her office. And Madhuri Singh had also had a number of odd, though minor, accidents.
That was really how it had all started - when Daman Duwalia had noticed that Madhuri Singh had started coming to work injured, one day with her ankle bandaged, another with a Band-Aid on her face. When Daman had asked, she'd told him she'd cut her face on a prop rapier that had been purposely left sticking straight out from a wall, and she'd sprained her ankle when she'd tripped over a box of props she was sure hadn't been there five minutes earlier.
Still, if it hadn't been for the threatening letters, he explained, neither of them would have thought anything about the accidents, and even with the letters, neither one of them wanted to call the police. There really was such a thing as the wrong kind of publicity, he wrote. Even though Romeo and Juliet didn't have a curse on it, the way Shakespeare's play Macbeth supposedly did, if word got out that weird things were happening on the production, it might be bad for the box office.
Since he'd been feeling a little freaked out, Daman Duwalia had gotten online and looked up private detective agencies in Rocky Beach. His search had brought him to The Three Investigators, and although he hadn't understood just how young Jupiter, Pete, and Bob were at first, he'd been truly impressed with Bob's case reports. After he'd read them, he'd talked to the girl who was playing Juliet - a local girl named Califia García-Williams - and she'd told him that she'd long been in the same grade at school as Jupiter, Pete, and Bob.
Since Califia was just fourteen, this had surprised Duwalia, he said, but when Califia had told him how mature The Three Investigators were for their age, he'd decided they might be able to get to the bottom of what was going on at the theater. Madhuri Singh seemed to think he and she were being targeted because they were Hindus, but Daman Duwalia found that hard to believe. If they could make it, he hoped The Three Investigators would meet him at the theater the next day at noon. The actors had a two-hour break for lunch, and unless he heard they couldn't come, he'd expect to meet them at the box office, then take them to his dressing room to talk.
Bob finished reading the letter and looked up at his friends.
"Wow!" he said. "The idea that someone as famous as Daman Duwalia would come to us for help is just - amazing."
"And you're the one who brought him to us, Records," said Jupiter.
"Did you notice he gave us his cellphone number?" Pete said. "I bet I could start a business selling that to the girls in our class! Though Califia wouldn't need it."
Califia García-Williams had been in Jupiter, Pete, and Bob's grade for a long time now, but Bob didn't know her very well. Mallory MacLeod had recently told Bob that Califia's mother was a dancer and her father was an actor, but before he'd learned this, all Bob had really known about her was that she was very pretty and was in the dance and theater clubs.
Like Bob, she had mixed parentage - his was Scottish/Chinese and hers was Hispanic/ African-American - but unlike Bob, she had a lot of acting talent.
"I take it we're going to meet Duwalia?" he asked - mainly for the pleasure of listening to Pete erupt with a gigantic "Are you kidding me?"
Actually, Pete didn't stop there but began reviewing several high points of the first Time Twist movie and was starting on some high points from the sequel when Jupiter held his hand up.
"Enough," he said. "You've convinced me that Daman Duwalia is talented. The mere fact that he was cast as Romeo in a summer theater production of Shakespeare's tragedy wouldn't guarantee that, unfortunately. The director might have simply wanted a famous name as a box office draw."
"Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy?" Pete asked in surprise. "I thought the Rocky Beach Summer Theatre Festival put on mostly feel-good stuff, if you know what I mean."
"Romeo and Juliet definitely isn't feel-good," Bob said. "It takes place during the Renaissance in Verona, Italy, and although it's a love story, a lot of people die."
Although Bob had never seen a live production of any Shakespeare play, he'd seen film versions of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet - both by the Italian director Franco Zefferelli. He'd liked Hamlet better, but he'd thought the actors playing Romeo and Juliet had been really effective at conveying how desperately they wanted to be together.
"Verona?" Pete exclaimed, delighted. "Verona has great soccer teams. They call it football in Italy, but still. I thought you said it was a love story!"
"It is," Jupiter said. "A tragic love story. I've never seen it, but I'm pretty sure there isn't any soccer."
"In that you would be correct," Bob said, smiling. "There's a lot of sword fighting, but no soccer. Romeo's family and Juliet's family hate each other, but Romeo and Juliet secretly get married. It's a tragedy because they die in the end."
"I hate it when that happens," Pete said.
"The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought watching a tragedy made the audience feel emotions like pity and terror," Bob said. "And that led to a healing experience he called catharsis."
When this didn't seem all that enlightening to Pete, Bob added, "It's like when you cry a lot, and then when it's over you feel better."
"In any case," Jupiter interrupted firmly, "if we're going to be meeting Daman Duwalia at the Rocky Beach Summer Theatre Festival tomorrow at noon, we should go into Headquarters and use the firm computer to do some preliminary research."
"Oh, no," Pete groaned. "It's really hot in there today. I'd much rather stay outside for now. Maybe Bob can boot up his laptop."
"I didn't bring it," Bob said. "I only had room for the climbing gear. Anyway, I think the first thing we should do is call Worthington and make sure he can drive us to the theater tomorrow."
The Rocky Beach Summer Theatre Festival was in the foothills outside of town, and while, theoretically, the boys could ride their bikes there to meet Daman Duwalia, it was quite some distance - with a lot of it uphill - and it seemed to Bob they shouldn't arrive disheveled, sweaty, and out of breath for such an important meeting.
It would be years before the three of them were able to get their driver's licenses in California, but a few weeks ago, they'd bought a used car with part of the reward money they'd gotten after discovering a pouch of gold hidden for over a hundred years. The reward had also let them hire Worthington - who they'd met when he had driven them around in a Rolls-Royce Jupiter had won the use of, and who'd become a real friend.
"Good thinking, Bob," Jupiter said. "Do you have your cellphone with you?"
Since he did have that, Bob dialed Worthington's number - but was sent right to voice mail. He left a brief message saying that he, Jupiter, and Pete were hoping Worthington could drive them somewhere the following day, then clicked his phone shut.
"We really need to do some research about Daman Duwalia, Madhuri Singh, and the Summer Theatre Festival," Jupiter said. "The only personal knowledge I have of any of those relates to the new building. The architect's plans called for lots of recycled materials, and the construction crew bought reclaimed lumber from the Salvage Yard. Aunt Mathilda was quite beside herself."
“I remember!" Pete said. "She was practically dancing with joy."
"I helped out when the crew came to the Yard," Jupiter said, "so I met some of the men working on the renovation. I particularly remember a man named Cory Johnson. He was on the electrical crew and was buying old light fixtures he could use in the restrooms, dressing rooms, and halls. He was going to rebuild most of them. He seemed very clever - a natural inventor."
"Like you," Bob said.
"Well," Jupiter admitted. "I did feel a certain kinship."
"That's so cool!" Pete said. "When we go to the theater, maybe we'll recognize stuff."
"In any case, unless the two of you have something to add, we should go in now," Jupiter said. "It's too bad Bob doesn't have his laptop, but since no one else around here has one either - "
"Mallory does!" Bob found himself saying. "She uses one in her work at the Salvage Yard. It's hers, but she always has it. At least she's had it every time I've seen her working here."
"That's a great idea!" Pete exclaimed, though Jupiter looked somewhat doubtful.
"Also, she and Califia are getting to be friends," Bob added. "Before we headed up to Cornucopia Wines for the Fourth of July, Mallory told me that Califia had invited her to go swimming at her house. Maybe Califia has even told her what's going on up at the theater."
"I can't believe Califia is playing Juliet," Pete said. "I always thought she was really talented, but I didn't know she was good enough to play opposite someone like Daman Duwalia!"
"Don't you remember when we were in sixth grade and Miss Thomas organized that assembly where students memorized poems?" Bob asked. "Everyone started applauding when Califia was done reciting."
"That's right!" Pete said. "I do remember."
For a moment, Jupiter still looked uncertain about the proposal, but then he nodded and said, "Fine. Go and find Mallory. I'll go to the house to get us all some drinks."
Pete and Bob both jumped to their feet - Pete to start kicking his hacky sack into the air again, and Bob to head for the shed he thought Mallory must be working in - while Jupiter started toward the gate at the back of the Salvage Yard.
As he walked toward the shed, Bob was glad that Jupe had agreed about Mallory. Of course, Bob knew that what had sealed the deal hadn't been Mallory's laptop - or even the help she had given The Three Investigators in two of their last three cases - but the fact that she was a friend of Califia's and might know more than Daman Duwalia had told them in his letter.
Even so, Bob was pretty sure that, although Jupiter had spent most of his life thinking girls weren't just a different sex but a different species, his mind was slowly being changed - and mostly thanks to Mallory MacLeod. Like Jupiter, Mallory had a lot of self-confidence, and decisions seemed to come easily to her. She also seemed to have a Jupiter-like drive toward finishing things and getting results.
Bob liked these qualities in Mallory partly because he had also seen them in Jupiter - though of course, with Mallory, it was all slightly different. And, to Bob, intriguing. As he walked up the steps into the shed where he thought he'd find her working, he stopped when he saw her through the open door. A laptop was open in front of her and there were piles of colorful scatter rugs to her left and to her right.
She was sitting cross-legged on the splintery wooden floor, wearing old-fashioned loose-fitting blue jeans and a peasanty-looking coral-colored blouse with sleeves that came down just to her elbows. Her hair was wavy and very red - a kind of red that almost knocked your eyes out, Bob thought. Although at this distance he couldn't really see her eyes, he knew they were very blue, and that there was something about those eyes and that hair that really got to him.
However, the most amazing thing about the situation was that the girl herself was easy to talk to, and when she looked up and saw him, he found himself calling out.
"Hey, Mallory," he said. "Do you want to help us research a new case? We've been hired by Daman Duwalia! Well, not hired, exactly, but he's asked us to meet with him tomorrow! And he wrote to us because he read my case reports on our website!"
© Elizabeth Arthur and Steven Bauer 2025