The Three Investigators Mystery Series

The Three Investigators Mystery Series
Summaries of #12-22

The summaries for #13, 14, 15, 17, 18, and 19 were taken from the back cover of the Random House softcover edition.  The summaries for #16, 20, 21, and 22 were adapted from the back cover summary.
 #12 The Mystery of the Laughing Shadow
Bob and Pete find a gold amulet while walking past a rural estate.  Suddenly, they hear a strange laugh and see a menacing shadowy figure in the darkness.

As the boys try to discover the significance of the amulet and the appearance of the shadow, they must contend with villains desperate to obtain the amulet.

The amulet may lead to a treasure—and the boys must find it first!

 #13 The Secret of the Crooked Cat
The carnival's in town!  But for the Three Investigators, it's not just fun and games.

A thief runs off with a carnival prize—an oddly shaped stuffed cat.  The boys suspect the cat holds a clue to a much more valuable prize—one worth thousands of dollars!  The thief is probably a carnival showman.  Could he be the fearless lion tamer?  The silent clown?  The hulking strongman?

The three young sleuths rush in eagerly to catch the crook—only to find the carnival overloaded with dangerous traps!

 #14 The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon
Henry Allen's dog is missing.  He thinks it's been eaten by a dragon!  He swears he saw a dragon emerge from the ocean and slither into the caves underneath his cliff-top house.

The Three Investigators don't know if they believe Mr. Allen, but they're determined to find the dog.  And that means exploring those dangerous caves...where something evil lurks, ready to catch unwary pets—and detectives!

 #15 The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints
The Potter's house is haunted!

The Potter is—or was—an eccentric old ceramics artist, famous for wearing a long white robe and going barefoot.  A short time ago he mysteriously disappeared.  Now his house is filled with bare footprints that dance with ghostly green flames!

Has The Potter died and come back to haunt his house?  His family fears the worst.  But The Three Investigators have a different idea—because they aren't yet ready to believe in ghosts!

 #16 The Mystery of the Nervous Lion
Weird things are happening at Jungle Land, a wild-animal farm.  Someone has upset the lion—and let him loose!  Kong the gorilla escapes from his cage and roams crazily in the brush.  And prowlers are spotted on the property.

The Three Investigators creep through the jungle on a desperate search for clues.  They must find out who's been disturbing the animals—before a wild animal finds them!

  #17 The Mystery of the Singing Serpent
A strange, shrill song echoes through the old Jamison mansion.  The housekeeper flees from the estate, screaming in horror.  Young Allie Jamison blames a houseguest, Mr. Ariel, for the spine-chilling noises.  He's an odd little man who never sees daylight.  And he holds some mysterious power over Allie's eccentric aunt.

Allie asks The Three Investigators to chase Ariel away.  But Ariel is protected by powerful forces—evil spirits and a singing snake!

 #18 The Mystery of the Shrinking House
Worthless old junk—but it belonged to the Countess's dead brother, and she wants it all back!

Unfortunately, everything has been sold—the old leather suitcases, the stuffed owl, even the strange paintings showing a house getting smaller and smaller.  So the Countess hires The Three Investigators to track down her brother's belongings.

The boys never dream that the "junk" might be valuable.  But they soon discover that someone else is desperate to find the dead man's things—and will stop at nothing to get them!

 #19 The Secret of Phantom Lake
From their hideaway in The Jones Salvage Yard, The Three Investigators sally forth to foil the most clever villains and unravel the darkest of riddles.

But now comes a riddle more than a hundred years old!  Can even our formidable trio solve it?

Can the stubborn trio solve a message from the dead, and find the secret of Phantom Lake?  And if they do—can they find it in time?

  #20 The Mystery of Monster Mountain
Something is wrong at Slalom Inn!  The innkeeper's wife is a nervous wreck.  The innkeeper stalks the mountainside with a tranquilizer gun.  Two of the inn's guests quarrel constantly.  And huge, mysterious footprints keep appearing in the woods.

The Three Investigators just wanted a quiet vacation at the inn.  But they're not going to get it—not if the old legends are true and there really is a monster on Monster Mountain!

 #21 The Secret of the Haunted Mirror
Why have two people suddenly become fascinated by wealthy Mrs. Darnley's antique Spanish mirror?  First, a collector is desperate to buy it from her.  Then a burglar tries to steal it.

The Three Investigators agree to guard the mirror, never guessing how hair-raising the work will be.  The ghostly image of a long-dead magician stares out of the mirror at night!  The ancient mirror brings trouble not only from the living—but also from the dead!

 #22 The Mystery of the Dead Man's Riddle
When Dingo Towne's will was read, his relatives got a nasty shock.  Old Dingo had left his fortune to whoever could find it!  The entire will, along with a baffling riddle, was published in the newspaper.

Along with hundreds of others, The Three Investigators plunge eagerly into the wild treasure hunt—only to discover that someone is following them in order to use their hunches to get to the treasure first!

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