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The seventeen-year-old Investigators try to locate a film star kidnapped during the filming of a horror movie

139 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

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111 people want to read

About the author

Megan Stine

195 books56 followers
Megan Stine is the Editor-in-Chief of Real U Guides and the author of more than 100 books for young readers including Trauma-Rama, an etiquette book for teenagers published by Seventeen magazine, and several titles in a series based on the popular 1990’s television series Party of Five. A frequent writer of books in the enormously popular Mary-Kate and Ashley series, she is the best-selling author of Likes Me, Likes Me Not and Instant Boyfriend. She has worked with CBS and ABC in developing comedy and drama television pilots, and has written comedy material for a well-known radio personality in New York.

When she isn’t writing, she is a portrait and fine art photographer and a contributing photographer for the Real U series of guides.

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5 stars
38 (13%)
4 stars
94 (33%)
3 stars
108 (38%)
2 stars
29 (10%)
1 star
10 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
Profile Image for Sonja Rosa Lisa ♡  .
4,669 reviews615 followers
May 10, 2025
Der Hauptdarsteller eines Horrorfilms verschwindet vom Filmset. Scheinbar wurde er entführt. Justus, Peter und Bob wollen helfen, den Fall aufzuklären, doch als Warnung wird in ihre Zentrale eingebrochen. Auf der Videoüberwachung ist der Einbrecher zu sehen, und er sieht aus wie ein Vampir!?
😊 Ein seltsamer Fall für die drei Detektive. Ich fand den Band recht unterhaltsam und irgendwie auch amüsant. Dieser Geschichte merkt man auch wieder ihr Alter an, was mir aber gut gefallen hat. Ein bisschen Nostalgie :)
Profile Image for MaggyGray.
665 reviews31 followers
August 23, 2016
Eine sehr schöne Folge.
Der Beginn wird fast komplett von Peter allein bestritten, Bob und Justus tauchen erst später auf. Ich frage mich beim Hören oft, ob Jens, der den Peter spricht, zu dieser Zeit erkältet war, oder gerade im Stimmbruch, denn die ganze Folge über redet er sehr leise und leicht emotionslos, was aber sehr angenehm ist. Ein weiterer Pluspunkt dieser Folge ist das altbekannte Hollywood-Flair, das den neueren Folgen so abgeht. Die skurrile Welt der Stars und Sternchen in der Filmstadt kommt bei dieser Folge sehr gut zur Geltung.
Der Fall selbst ist in guter alter Drei ??? Manier geschrieben: ein spannender Plot, tolle Charaktere (allein der Name Marty Morningbaum verdient einen Oscar!!) und eine absolut logische und schlüssige Auflösung.
Das einzige, was mich immer an diesem Fall gestört hat, ist das Coverbild. Ich muss dabei immer an eine Echse denken...
Profile Image for Nadja.
1,851 reviews85 followers
March 6, 2025
Der Fall hat mir gut gefallen, es bleibt bis zum Ende spannend und auch der Humor war gut.
Profile Image for Niki.
988 reviews164 followers
April 2, 2024
Pleasantly surprised with this one.

It's pretty clever, and even though it's a typical Crimebusters novel as in "Tons of emphasis on cars and car chases and girls, the boys are weirdly separated all the time [was that an attempt at "They're more independent now, not glued at the hip like they were as kids"? Because it reads like this was a TV series and the actors had to be randomly absent for other projects with bogus excuses instead], and the case is one that the police should probably be solving instead of the boys, involving criminals/ crooks/ fraudsters, and also the book shouldn't be this long and lots of it reads like padding".....

....it still involved a number of great elements and scenes () that made it stand out to me.

Not to mention that Marble resembled a guy I know irl to a T and that made me laugh in all his appearances, lol.
Profile Image for Isabel.
11 reviews
January 12, 2023
Der zynisch-satirische Blick auf Hollywood & die Filmbranche mit ihren narzisstischen Schauspielern, überforderten REgisseuren und schmierig-korrupten Produzenten hat ein bisschen was von Sunset Boulevard, ein bisschen Feud, ein bisschen The Offer -- 4,5 Sterne, aufgerundet wird für die Kabbeleien von Peter & Kelly!
Profile Image for Quentin Wallace.
Author 34 books178 followers
June 6, 2018
2.5 Stars

This one disappointed me somewhat. The plot was cliché but still confusing and the characters just didn't seem real. It also was a little silly overall. I still can't get used to the somewhat drastic changes the characters have went through (although to be fair most people do change quite a bit when going from 13 to 17) and what worked when the characters were early teens doesn't work as well when they are late teens. It's not so bad it puts me off the 3I series but this was a low point.
Profile Image for Caitlyn.
95 reviews4 followers
March 22, 2024
I went into this knowing it’d be a little cheesy and quick, but wow was it cheesy and quick. I know it’s labeled “just for boys” but do they have to stop and eat every 10 pages? And does Pete really not understand he was terrible to Kelly?

Good mystery but you can definitely tell this book is dated. And a little harder to pick up on the characters backstories if you haven’t read other books in the series. I’m used to it being thrown all up front like in Nancy Drew books, but here I didn’t even know all the boys’ names until several pages in or what “roles” they played in the trio.

Would still read more in the series though because it was fun to read.
Profile Image for sonofabook.
198 reviews2 followers
February 8, 2023
Bob hilft an einem Filmset mit, an dem der Hauptdarsteller des Film verschwindet.
Sofort bricht Panik aus, da die Kosten pro Drehtag auch unfassbar hoch sind.
So machen sich die drei Detektive auf die Suche. Es stellt sich dann allerdings heraus, das der Produzent des mit in die Entführung verwickelt sein soll.
Das war eine Folge die so dahin geplätschert ist und man das Ende im Grunde genommen schon von Anfang an gewusst hat, weswegen Spannung nicht wirklich aufkam. Schade.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
280 reviews9 followers
October 5, 2009
Why I Read this Book: A small, local (Apalachicola) store was selling ex-library books from Carabelle School and I was lucky enough to find this (and Arthur C. Clarke's The Coming of the Space Age , and a picture book titled Space by someone named Susan Harris). It was quite a bargain; $6 for all three books.

In the 1980s, the copyright holders/publishers decided that the Three Investigators series needed to be "updated" by making the characters into teenagers with teenage concerns (as selected by large multinational publishing conglomerates). Thus, the original series was replaced by the "Crimebusters" series.

I'm in agreement with most fans of the original series; I didn't like this much. One problem is that the book centers around Pete, the Investigator I find least interesting. (Pete is the "jock", Jupiter is the brain, and Bob is the bookish reader--I was always a heavy reader, and a know-it-all, but I have never in my life been good at sports.) (On the plus side, Pete's father works in the movie industry, and it was nice to see that aspect of Pete's background playing an important part in the story.) What's worse, Pete tries to solve the mystery "solo" for the first third or so, and the interactions between the characters are arguably the most fun part of the series.

The corporate hand of Random House is clumsy and heavy indeed. Pete has a steady girlfriend, and is continually trying to explain to her that he's not really ignoring her; he has a case to work on. Every one of these scenes made me wish it was over. Random House apparently thinks that 1980s teenagers are illiterate compared to their earlier, and younger, counterparts--the book is shorter and uses simpler words than the non-Crimebusters books, and bookish Bob no longer haunts the library but has become an agent(?!) for local rock bands(!?)--because he's so busy, we almost never get to see him, except for brief scenes in which he's incredibly suave with young women and can talk them into almost anything.

Having said all this, I have to admit that I was hooked by the book and it was (mostly) a smooth read, apart from a couple rather obvious clues.

(Finished 2008-12-27 08:44EST)

Profile Image for Lea.
1,080 reviews291 followers
July 24, 2016
Das ist einer der besseren Crimebusters Fälle. Spannend, meistens sinnvoll und mit logischen Ende. Ich mag dass das Buch aus Peters Perspektive geschrieben ist. Nervig finde ich eher diesen doof konstruieren Streit zwischen ihm und Kelly der sich durch das ganze Buch zieht. Auch nervig: meine Lieblingsfigur Bob kommt so gut wie gar nicht vor weil er zu beschäftigt mit seinem Job und Mädchen ist. Zumindest bekommt man so ein bisschen mehr Szenen von Peter und Justus, die zusammen eine interessante Dynamik haben. Alles in allem ein ordentliches Buch.
Profile Image for Hemant Jain.
314 reviews28 followers
August 14, 2013
Typical 3I adventure ... with a hollywood twist this time around

An actor gets kidnapped in the middle of a film sequel and the 3I get involved in a pretty interesting manner ... and begin to get threats and get thrashed the moment they get formally involved ...
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews

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