- Title: The Secret of the Crooked Cat
- wiki: link
Throwback Tuesday takes us back to a mystery involving the Three Investigators whose mantra of “We Investigate Everything” leads them to look into a traveling carnival in Rocky Beach after a series of mysterious occurences including the theft of a carnival prize where the thief miraculously disappears from a blind alley. It seems the plush crooked cat stolen from Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews isn’t the only one the prizes the thief is after but just what is hidden in one of the crooked cat prizes and how does a bank robbery on the carnival’s last stop in San Mateo fit in?
The Secret of the Crooked Cat stays very much in the formula of the series with the carnival son’s owner far more open to having the trio investigate than his father. We also get two of the Investigators getting into danger and using their ingenuity to escape by creating a makeshift raft.
Deducing that a human fly, disguising himself as a different member of the carnival, is responsible, the Three Investigators leap into action although it takes longer than Jupiter expected to find their bank robber also responsible for various accidents at the carnival to hide his identity and his ill-gotten treasure. We also get a fairly strong red herring in the strong man with a mysterious past who turns out not to be the thief but is hiding something else from the carnival. Eventually the thief is unmasked (in this case literally) as the Three Investigators successfully close another case.