And Death Trap Mine, With My Heart In It

I have salted the mine of my collection, bloggers, by peppering it with such tasty treats as this:  

 

At last a dustjacketted Death Trap Mine!  Behold its magnificent glory!  Bask in its splendour!  Just be careful when you do so, as some of the pages are starting to come a bit loose in the middle.  The book is ex-lib, of course, and has some wear around the boards’ edges.  But check out the nifty DJ!  There’s a bit of a gruesome cover picture on this one, folks.  Several Three Investigators books have skeletons or skulls, or even mummified remains, but this one goes the whole hog and has a grey skinned dead body!  Nectar!   

Seth – my money’s on Jasper.

Better The Dancing Devil You Know

There is a craft practised by librarians throughout the land, bloggers, of which I know little.  I’m talking about book-binding, that practice of discarding the old boards from a book and mounting the pages in a new cover.  I assume that this is done to books that have worn and knackered boards or are otherwise unusable.  Take a look at these two library re-bound books that have just arrived:  

Neither have the original illustrated boards; one has green cloth boards and the other has light brown ones.  If you look closely, you may notice that one of these books is a different shape and size from the other.  It appears that while the first one has been re-bound in boards that are of similar size to the original, the other one has been re-bound in boards that are shorter and wider.  The pages have been cropped to fit the new binding, resulting in a strange hybrid large hardback that is somewhere between the size of a normal large hardback and small hardback.  The moral of this story, bloggers, is that when you are buying an ex-library book, make sure it hasn’t been bastardised the way these ones have.  Just a shame the story isn’t as interesting as the boards the book was bound in eh, bloggers?

He is Deformed, Crooked Cat

Mostly, I am happy with the quality of the books in the collection so far, bloggers, but one or two are crying out for an upgrade.  Take that large Crooked Cat I found in the car hole for instance.  It had threadbare boards and a fair few other faults.  That’s why I jumped at the chance to bid on this when it appeared on eBay recently:  

Much better, eh?  It wasn’t all that cheap, but I’m sure I can sell the old one and justify the expense. 

KHHHHHHHAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!

His Cunning Hath Cheated Me Of The Skeleton Island

Frustration was setting in, bloggers, around my inability to find a large Skeleton Island at a decent price.  So I was all excited when I saw this one listed on eBay:  

Fan me!  A first impression delight with clean pages and boards and vibrant colours.  Bidding was brisk on this one, folks, and the hammer went down at an eye-watering £30 inclusive.  In the aftermath of the auction, I was left dazed, confused and bewildered that I managed to get all of those later editions with dj easier and cheaper than this, lets face it, not exactly rare entry in the series.  Anyway I’ll take that thirty quid on the chin and do without any lamb and mushroom bhoonas made mild for a few weeks to make up the shortfall.  Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie version of this book, bloggers, if not I urge you to track it down.  It’s obviously not a literal translation of the book, but it has the feel of it to be sure.  The one thing that I love about the Three Investigators films are the characters.  They are absolutely bang on.  Jupiter is an annoying, brainy twat; Bob is a fanny magnet and Hugeney (is that how you spell it?) is a cheeky bastard.  It’s a shame they only made two, but let’s face it that’s two more than we ever thought we would see this time ten years ago.

You Are a Rare Stuttering Parrot Teacher

Some of the earlier large hardbacks have proved to be particularly difficult to find, bloggers, in fact I can’t believe I managed to obtain dustjacketted Phantom Lake, Dancing Devil, Magic Circle etc before such run of the mill stuff as Terror Castle, Stuttering Parrot and Skeleton Island.  Not to worry though, because look at what has just come in the mail, courtesy of an Amazon dealer:   

A really nice first/first Stuttering Parrot with clean pages and boards.  Christmas has come early in the Dotch household and I can’t wait to settle down with this, one of my all time favourites.  It was these early books that set the template and indeed the standard for the series, this one introduces such elements as Ramble and Scramble and the character of Huganay (that is how you spell it?) who became the closest thing apart from Skinny Norris to a nemesis for the Three Investigators.  If you don’t believe me, have a look at the Three Investigators movies.  Who can’t love this intricately plotted story, with its well defined characters and most excellent spooky graveyard scene at the climax?  One thing, though.  Who the fuck are those imposters in headquarters on the cover?

The Way to Dusty Death Trap Mine

The last book from New Zealand is this one: 

Lovely stuff; don’t forget how hard to find these later small hardbacks are.  Again, this is unread and in excellent condition apart from some wear and fading to the spine.  These books cost me just under £15 each including postage; I reckon a bit of a bargain, folks.  

Death Trap Mine saw the return of that rich bitch Allie from Singing Serpent, although she’s not quite as annoying this time.  It’s a book of pure quality, this, although I don’t know how Jupiter missed the biggest clue ever at the start of the book.  Allie tells him that her uncle is Harry Osborne and anyone who knows anything knows that Harry Osborne is actually the Green Goblin, and therefore clearly the villain of the piece, so why didn’t Jupiter pick up on this with his huge brain?  Had he had his wits about him, the whole story could have been over by the end of the first chapter and we could have moved on to the Dancing Devil.  Dancing Devil? Er on second thoughts, maybe just as well Jupe was a bit useless this time.

Rather Be An Invisible Dog and Bay the Moon

Another delightful ,little number from New Zealand, folks, here we have my small Invisible Dog:

In even better condition than the others, it is unread and has less shelf wear to the extremities of the boards.  I must say I absolutely love this book and feel it is by far M V Carey’s best entry in the series.  The issue of the phantom priest is never really resolved and many readers can’t get past this.  I say stop worrying about petty shite and enjoy the story for what it is; a spooky romp in classic Three Investigators tradition with one of the best ever cover pictures.