An Old Old Favorite

A gift I bought myself for Christmas this year is a book I used to own when I was a kid. If I remember correctly, it's a book my mother bought for me for Christmas when I was about 10 or 11 years old. As I recall, I loved this book when I first read it - over 50 years ago now - but over the years the book got lost in the shuffle of many moves from place to place. I don't know exactly what it was, but something prompted me to think of the book recently, and after searching the Internet, I found affordable used copies available. I thought, "What the hell? Why not buy it again just to have it and to spend some time revisiting the stories that gave me so much pleasure as a kid."

Now I don't remember whether as a kid, I really thought Alfred Hitchcock had written these stories. I did know Hitchcock was a film director because I'd seen some of his films. The book has an introduction written by Hitchcock and little individual intros to each story in which "Hitchcock" addresses the book's intended audience, young readers, and tells them a little about the mystery they are about to read and will try to solve. Did I take these little snippets as actually written by him? I don't know. But I do know that I just loved the stories, all of which feature young protagonists caught up in mysteries they try to solve. And you as the reader, after completing each story, get a little pause in which to have time to try to figure out the mystery. Then "Hitchcock" speaks to you again and asks you whether you have figured out the puzzle. He then tells you the answer to the puzzle, in case you haven't solved it. In that moment it gives you to stop and think before you learn the mystery's solution, the book is not unlike the Encyclopedia Brown stories, another very old favorite of mine. After five decades plus, I can't remember now whether I did solve any of these stories, but I'd bet I did not, or at least not the majority of them, since, mystery lover though I am, I have always been terrible at figuring out the solutions to these things. 

So who did write these stories? Who was the ghostwriter? It was Robert Arthur, an author who over several years wrote a bunch of books and also wrote for radio and TV. He wrote scripts for The Twilight Zone and wrote and edited scripts for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He created The Three Investigators series, in which three young friends use logic and teamwork to solve mysteries, and became the main writer/editor/anthologizer of the various Alfred Hitchcock-branded collections that came out during the 1960s, books with titles like Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery (1962), Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories Not for the Nervous (1965), Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV (1968), and Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives (1969).

Arthur died in 1969, at the age of 59, which is unfortunate. But he'd made his mark.  His popular Three Investigators series was continued by other writers. The man, clearly, was a consummate pro, and I look forward to re-reading the stories in the Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries collection now that I know who he is. I wonder too, having forgotten the solutions to the stories, whether I'll be able to solve the puzzles this time around.