[mhomde]

Christ I almost forgot about Three Investigators, but I really liked them at the time. "The green backs" as I thought of them (Nancy Drew was red) Probably one of those things you should never re-read though. Using Alfred Hitchcock as "cover author" must have really paid off

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/sep/23/thre...

"The Three Investigators were created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first few books and then oversaw and edited the rest of the series. It was he who had the brainwave of having Alfred Hitchcock as the patron of the team. Hitch introduced each case, and often called them in to set them off on their latest adventure. It was this intrusion of real life into a fictional world that cemented my relationship with the Three Investigators. Could these stories possibly be true ... ?"

And...

"The real magic, though, was in the boys' headquarters, hidden among the piles of junk in Uncle Titus's scrapyard. Built from an abandoned trailer, the secret base was accessed via a series of ingenious secret passages, with the codenames Green Gate One, Tunnel Two, and Red Gate Rover – the latter so named because it was hidden behind a painting of a dog."

[teh_klev]

I ripped through around 15 or 20 of these one summer holiday (and slightly beyond) back in the late 70's or early 80's - I think I was around 11-12 years old. They were certainly more prevalent on Scottish holiday shop book stands than The Hardy Boys (which I never got around to reading - by the time school went back in I'd moved onto James Herbert horrors which scared the bejesus out of me :) ).

The Three Investigators were truly immersive and fun to read. You'd hardly get a peep from me once I got stuck into one. I think I was reading almost one a day and would burn all my holiday pocket money on them. I didn't read them in any particular order and just grabbed them whenever I found a new copy I hadn't read before.

I reckon there must be a box of these somewhere in my dad's attic, it'd be fun recover them to see how they stand up.

[jgamman]

we had similar childhoods - those Rats books were like a horror movie that lasted for days till i finished each book ;-)

[barking]

Wow, I was pretty certain I never read the three investigators but I am must be wrong and mixing up different series! Getting old! I was pretty sure the Hardy Boys had a base like that too. And a friend called Chuck or something. They had some kind of a lever thing to raise some of the junk that concealed the entrance to the base. I was searching for a reference and found this 8 year old guardian article that mentions both series and the junkyard base.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/sep/23/thre...