The Mystery of the Ruritanian Riddle

A Hollywood auction. A cinematic dungeon. And a duel that won't cut to black. Step into mysteries that demand courage, discernment, and the will to seek the truth. Conceived and co-written by the daughter of Robert Arthur - the creator of the Three Investigators universe - this restoration of the classic series takes its iconic characters into a new age, with gripping contemporary adventures for young readers who crave meaning, want to share in the growth of characters they admire, and seek a world they can return to again and again. 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 called 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 sword fight, 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?

Elizabeth Arthur is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book. She is the co-author, with her husband Steven Bauer, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.)