What’s erased isn’t always gone—and ink never forgets.
The Mystery of the Indefatigable Ink
The New Three Investigators Book 9
by Elizabeth Arthur & Steven Bauer
Genre: YA Mystery, Suspense, Adventure
What’s erased isn’t always gone—and ink never forgets.
The Salvage Yard is still there. So is the secret headquarters. And so are the Three Investigators—smarter than ever, a little older, and ready for their most challenging cases yet.
Conceived and co-written by Elizabeth Arthur, the daughter of Robert Arthur, the creator of the Three Investigators universe, this exciting reboot of the classic series takes its iconic characters into a new age. They return reimagined, reinvigorated, and more relevant than ever.
In the ninth book of a 26-book story arc, Jupiter’s trip to the local hardware store seems like an ordinary errand – until a chance meeting with Mrs. Vasiliev, an elderly Russian woman who fled the Soviet Union in the 1980s, puts him on the track of a brand-new mystery. Mrs. Vasiliev asks Jupiter to help a young Russian-American songwriter named Ivan Federov, who’s being threatened with a bogus plagiarism lawsuit.
At first, the case seems straightforward, but as The Three Investigators dig deeper, they uncover a complex and intriguing web of family history. Ivan’s great-grandparents fled the Soviet Union during the Russian Revolution, and his great-grandfather, Fyodor, an Oscar-winning Hollywood actor. Fyodor’s son, Vadim, was blacklisted in the 1950s during the Red Scare after being falsely accused of being a Soviet agent. But Vadim reinvented himself as the wildly successful mystery writer, Edison Ford, winning multiple Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America.
Vadim’s final manuscript, however, is missing. He had completed it just before his death – a literary novel about his parents’ escape from the Soviet regime – but despite years of searching, it’s nowhere to be found. The investigation reveals that the manuscript may not be as lost as everyone thinks – but someone is determined to keep it hidden. An old-fashioned card catalogue has been rifled – though a 1930s movie, Dawn Over Petrograd, holds hidden clues.
In the end, the hunt for the missing manuscript leads The Three Investigators to the American Film History Library where they must race against time to recover it. But when the manuscript falls into the wrong hands, the team faces dangerous opposition. Who is behind the plot to keep it buried? To what lengths will they go to protect their secret? And can Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Mallory uncover the truth before the manuscript is lost forever?
Join the team as they untangle a Gordian knot of deception, theft, and devious greed in this heart-pounding new chapter of The Three Investigators series.
There was a utility closet off the atrium, and Pete walked over and pulled open the door, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon, anything that might even the fight. In the corner, three rag mops with metal handles leaned against the wall. Bingo! In one hand Pete grabbed the mops, and in the other a galvanized metal bucket. The cotton mop heads were damp, and a little heavy. But it was the handles he was interested in.
He ran back to his friends and gave one of the mops to Jupiter and one to Bob.
“If you need to clean the floor with someone,” Pete said, “do it with these.”
He glanced up at the stacks where the flashlight beams continued to punch through the darkness. The thugs had assaulted Mr. Abelman before he’d had a chance to say anything, so there was no way he’d told them that Pete and the others were coming. This gave the four of them the advantage of surprise. They had no reason to think that their presence had been noted. The Three Investigators didn’t have flashlights of their own, the library was dark, and they’d been very quiet. The thugs wouldn’t suspect anyone else was on to them.
“Come on, Bob,” Pete whispered. Bob grabbed his mop and started to follow Pete.
“Wait,” Mallory said. She dashed behind the Circulation Desk, grabbed something fastened to a post, and returned with what Pete could now see was a squat red fire extinguisher.
“If the thieves make it down in the elevator,” she said, “maybe I can stop them by spraying this in their faces.”
“Great idea!” Pete said. “Then Jupiter can mop that up!”
Pete didn’t know why he was saying all these ridiculous things, but for some strange reason he actually almost felt like laughing. He motioned to Bob, put his finger to his lips, and then began jogging toward a hallway in the back of the building that he and the others hadn’t been down before. The hallway was murky, lit only by the bulb in an EXIT sign about halfway down the hall. They passed the doors of what Pete supposed were offices.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Bob whispered.
“No,” Pete said. “I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.”
The EXIT sign was above a door that opened onto an interior courtyard. It was pitch black out there and Pete could see nothing. But not far from it was another set of metal doors. Each of them had a rectangular pane of safety glass with embedded wire mesh, and each of them said FIRE DOOR. KEEP CLOSED. Behind the doors was a large tiled landing and a flight of stairs leading down to the basement and up to the restricted stacks. The staircase was sufficiently out of the way of the library’s patrons so that no one would be wandering up it, trying to gain access to the restricted areas without permission.
Pete grinned at Bob, held the door open so that Bob could get through, and then slipped through himself. Carrying his mop and bucket, he started up the stairs, Bob close behind him holding the mop handle in two hands like a staff. They passed the door leading to the second floor of stacks and continued up to where Pete had seen the flashlights.
There was a wire mesh window in the door at the top of the stairs as well, and Pete peered through it. He glimpsed a flash of light but didn’t see anybody. The thugs were several rows away from them. Bob eased open the door and he and Pete slipped through as soundlessly as possible, closing the door gently behind them. Surprise would be their greatest ally, Pete knew.
They paused for a minute while Pete breathed deeply, to slow his heart down and to calm himself. When he was ready, he gestured with his head and started creeping toward the aisle where the thugs were operating. They were talking quietly, cowed by the size of the place and the darkness, and Pete couldn’t make out what they were saying. He paused at the end of the stacks, his back against the metal support. Then as carefully as he could, he craned his neck and peered around the corner. In the flashlights’ glow, he was able to get a good look at two of them – Colton and one of his thug friends, who was holding a dark gray archive box. As he planned his move, another of the thugs spotted
him and called out in a piercing whisper, “Guys! We’ve got trouble!”
Though he was dismayed at being spotted, the comment gave Pete an unexpected boost. He certainly hoped he really was trouble.
Without time to plan his attack, Pete started yelling as he rushed toward the guy who had seen him, the pail hanging from his wrist, the mop handle secure in both hands. He took a swipe at him with the mop, but the narrow space between the stacks prevented him from getting any leverage. He decided to use the metal handle as a spear, but the guy sidestepped, and Pete had put so much force into the thrust that it flew out of his hands and went sliding down the aisle into the darkness.
The guy lunged forward, and this time Pete grabbed the bucket, swung from behind him, over his shoulder, and hit the guy square on the top of the head. He went down in a heap and stayed there. He wasn’t moving.
Behind him, Pete heard a commotion and he turned in time to see the surly security guard attack Bob. Bob had time to use his mop, and he smacked the guy in the ribs. This knocked him sideways but not out, and for a moment he stood there with his hands on his hips smirking.
“Is that the best you can do, you little punk?” the guard said. “I’ve seen third-grade girls stronger than you.”
Uncertainly, Bob looked back at Pete, who was flooded with rage on Bob’s behalf. He dropped the bucket and strode past until he was several feet in front of the guard.
“Oh, here’s the big man to the rescue,” the guard said. He raised his hands and wiggled them. “Whew, I’m scared!” he said in a high tremulous voice.
“You ought to be,” Pete said. Without thinking, he leaped forward and head-butted the guard, smashing him in the nose with his forehead. The guard staggered backwards, his hands to his face, as he tried to regain his footing. His nose was bleeding badly. His eyes crossed, he fell to his knees and then toppled to the floor, out cold.
Pete laughed out loud. Two down, he thought. Two to go.
Elizabeth Arthur is the daughter of Robert Arthur, the creator of The Three Investigators mystery series for young people. She is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K.
In 2018 Arthur set out to conceive and co-write a re-imagined, contemporary Three Investigators series consisting of twenty-six new books – one for every letter of the alphabet – working with her husband, Steven Bauer. Publication of the series began on March 3, 2025, and the two-part conclusion will be published on March 3, 2027.
Steven Bauer is the son-in-law of Robert Arthur, the creator of The Three Investigators mystery series. He is the author of three books for young people, the young adult fantasy Satyrday, the middle grade novel A Cat of a Different Color, and The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle, a picture book in verse.
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I enjoyed the excerpt. Sounds like a good read.
Fun story line, thanks for the chance
Thanks for the excerpt. I like the cover.
This sounds like a real page turner.
Love the book cover!
Sounds great.
Great book cover.
This sounds like a great YA Mystery, Suspense, Adventure book. I like the cover and excerpt.
Is there anything you wish readers knew about the book that they might not get from reading it?
This sounds like a great book!
This sounds really interesting.
The fact that there are now ways to read writings on ancient scrolls that can't really be touched proves that ink can be indefatigable.
this sounds really good
This book sounds intriguing
I enjoyed the excerpt for The Mystery of the Indefatigable Ink. Thanks for the giveaway!
Very unique cover
This sounds like an interesting book and I also like the cover.
Unforgettable cover
Do you write in a daily journal
I like the alliterative title, storyline, and the cover looks pretty good, too. :-)
It looks like a good read.
The covers are all really cool! I think the newest one is my favorite of them all.
I like the book details.
YA Mystery, Suspense, Adventure - everything I love in a genre!
Thank you for the excerpt.
This book sounds great! I love a good mystery!!
I am excited to check this author out.
What sparked the idea for this book?
This looks like an interesting mystery for Young Adults.
The cover is interesting.
Elizabeth Arthur and Steven Bauer masterfully interwove Hollywood history and Cold War paranoia to deliver a compelling and intelligent mystery worthy of the classic series they rebooted.
Logical, clear, and very well-explained.
I'm excited about the book.
A fascinating discussion is worth comment. I think that you ought to
publish more on this topic, it may not be a taboo matter but
typically people do not talk about these subjects.
To the next! Many thanks!!