The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow

Highly recommended for young readers. I started reading these books in fourth grade, and the copy I own is the very one I read way back then: it is from the school library, a purchased DISCARD.

One of the odd things about the book, and what struck me as rather strange even when I first read them, was the way the author was designated. On the title page it is listed as "ALFRED HITCHCOCK and The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow." Hitchcock was making money, here, and this was a franchise operation. Below the title, in smaller type, was printed "Text by William Arden," etc.

Robert Arthur, a writer known for his ghost stories, started out the series. William Arden (and others, perhaps) took over. This book is as good show more as those early entries. There was no obvious decrease in quality as the series transitioned its authors.

The youth market series fiction industry was certainly an odd one. show less

Bought 05 Jun 2009 - Corner Bookshop, Hay-on-Wye

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators # 12

A great read for a cold night, huddled in bed with the electric blanket - a mystery to solve involving not one but two Native American tribes, an academic, Hitchcock himself and the usual mild peril and resourceful boys. There's even a dodgy vegetarian in this one! Great stuff and as usual the spooky-seeming phenomenon has a rational explanation and some people are not what they seem.

Good stuff!

read some of the series in my early teens and have come back to them as a lark due the reviews by The Invisible Event.

very readily and not as childish as might be first thought (though still childish)

the solution to one of the mysteries has a distinctive Australian bent, though I did not pick up on it, despite the (one?) hint?

Big Ship

10/11/2025

It in no way detracts from my enjoyment of this juvenile mystery series, about three youthful investigators and their mysteries that I think must have inspired the plots and aspects of the "Scooby-Do" cartoons, that I generally forget the plots shortly after reading them. This is literary popcorn, but no matter; I've been known to enjoy a bag or two of popcorn. Evidently this one involves a laughing shadow.

Three boys try to solve another mystery involving a gold Indian amulet and a weird laughing shadow that appeared to them in the night.

A great and easily read mystery to help try and figure out.

I loved this series when I was a child, and am looking forward to reading them sometime soon with my son