The Mystery of the Smashing Glass

Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators #38

by William Arden

Three young detectives try to trap an invisible vandal who has been breaking car windows all over town.

Genres: Mystery, Childrens, Fiction, Young Adult, Audiobook, Crime, Detective

165 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Real name: Dennis Lynds.
Beginning in 1968 with The Mystery of the Moaning Cave and ending in 1989 with Hot Wheels, Dennis Lynds wrote fourteen novels under the pen name William Arden for the juvenile detective series The Three Investigators, which was originated by Robert Arthur, Jr.. Under this same name, he also wrote five novels featuring private eye Kane Jackson, a former military policeman who has become an industrial security specialist after leaving the military. The first Jackson novel, A Dark Power, appeared in 1968. As Arden, Lynds also wrote the highly-regarded espionage short story, "Success of a Mission," which was a finalist for the 1968 Edgar Award for best short fiction.

Reviews

[♡ Sonja Rosa Lisa ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Rocky Beach werden reihenweise Autofenster eingeschlagen. Der Täter ist nicht zu fassen. Immer dort, wo die Polizei auf der Lauer liegt, schlägt der Täter nicht zu. Es ist, als ob er wüsste, wo die Polizei gerade steckt.
Ein neuer Fall für Justus, Peter und Bob.
💜 Mäßig spannend, aber doch unterhaltsam. Ich habe es als Hörspiel gehört, und das hat mir gut gefallen!

[Nadja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Irgendwie schon eine eher untypische drei ??? Folge, welche mich noch so richtig packen konnte.

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Die drei ??? versuchen herauszufinden, wer in Rocky Beach Fensterscheiben von Autos einschlägt und was das mit einer gestohlenen Münze zu tun hat. Der Fall ist in etwa so spannend, wie er klingt und das Buch entsprechend wenig mitreißend, aber dennoch okay.

[Niki · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very, very average and mundane entry to the series. The solution to the mystery was satisfying, but a bit obvious.

It's also one of those cases where you're wondering why the police couldn't have handled it on their own the entire time, they're made out to be totally incompetent. I know, I know, I'm thinking about a middle grade mystery too much, but I really don't enjoy the books where the boys just catch thieves and crooks with zero "supernatural" (in quote marks because everything is usually explained, Scooby Doo style) elements.

[Robert Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the Three Investigators while I was growing up and read up to #32. I stopped reading the books when I was 18. A couple of years ago I got hold of the whole collection and have been reading the remaining titles when the mood takes me. Yesterday and today I read Smashing Glass. It's an interesting story by William Arden, the man responsible for gems like Moaning Cave and Dead Man's Riddle, and also a couple of duds like Phantom Lake and Crooked Cat, with their overuse of rubber masks. Towards the end of this series, you never know what to expect. This story is not at all bad, but the lustre of the earlier books, including Arden's own bright points, has faded. Someone is going around Rocky Beach smashing car windows right under the noses of the police and the investigators. The riddle is who, why and how. A crabby old numismatist has been the victim of a robbery to the tune of quarter of a million dollars. Could there be a connection between the smashed glass and stolen coin? After a few frustrations and disappointments, Jupiter sees a possible reason for the smashing glass. His hunch is correct and the mystery is solved pretty neatly, with Bob and Pete playing a more active role than they did in the other books written around this time. The coin theft is solved with less drama and quite predictably.
It's a good story in its way, but does not live up to the expectations created by stories like Whispering Mummy and Vanishing Treasure. This is mainly due to there not being a really strong crook. Spoiled young adults are no match for the likes of Rawley, Laslo Schmidt, Hugo Ariel or Hugany. The boys' characterization is also somewhat altered. Jupiter's vocabulary is not what it once was and a lot is made of his weight and desire for food. In the earlier stories, Pete was always the hungry one and Jupiter was portrayed as chubby due to lack of physical exercise rather than overeating. Bob, as records and research man, does hardly any research beyond posing as a reporter. But the weaker minor characters are mostly to blame for the book's lack of colour.
All in, it's a good wee story with some good detection, but in parts you can feel that the author has become tired of T3I. Some words are overused, as they are in other Arden stories, with "grin" being the main point in question. Pete looked up with a grin; Jupe grinned; Bob looked at them with a grin on his face. If the editor had dealt with this, the story would have been more readable. To sum up, mixed feelings about this one. Middle of the road with a little more potential than the final product. I'd give it a 3.5.

[MaggyGray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diese Folge fand ich schon immer toll.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't bad, but there just wasn't much to it. The mystery itself was pretty simplistic, and although there was a subplot even it wasn't anything special. It also made the police look a little stupid, and even though the Three Investigators are always made to the smartest guys in the book, the police don't normally look this inept.

Car windows are being mysteriously shattered all over town, and it keeps occurring in a straight line. I assumed it was something sonic doing it, but it was actually a guy on a bicycle shooting the windows out with a pellet gun, sometimes right in front of both the police and the Three Investigators. Also, since only one window was being smashed on each vehicle, you'd think out of the dozens of broken windows someone would have found the pellets, which eventually happens but much too late to be believable. There's a subplot with a stolen coin, but that was sort of predictable.

Overall not bad, but it didn't seem to have the depth of story that most in the series have.

[Bubu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wie oft kann man telefonlawine in einer Folge sagen?

[Tintentraeume · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cozy Crime bei den drei ??? - diese Folge war anders. Irgendwie alltäglicher und bodenständiger und dadurch gemütlich. Nette Abwechslung und trotzdem interessant und mitreißend.

[Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the fact that this book is a return to form of a sort. William Arden is one of the more prolific of the contributors to this series, so he does have a good sense of the characters. But the case itself, despite being somewhat pedestrian in nature, did have some complex elements to it and the clues are there for the reader to find.

[Lindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

165 pages

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

When car windows are mysteriously breaking all over Rocky Beach - with no-one around when it happens - The Three Investigators decide to find out the truth. Along the way, it seems there’s another case - a missing eagle dollar - that seems to have links with the first but the boys are constantly thwarted, as if someone - or something - can read their minds.
The 38th book in the series, this was originally published in the UK in 1987 but I didn’t read it until the late 90s and, according to my spreadsheet, I haven’t re-read it in the past 21 years. My memory was that the reasoning behind the smashing seemed very mundane and I wouldn’t disagree on this read-through, but that’s not to say there isn’t some entertainment along the way. I always enjoy the stories set around Rocky Beach and this never leaves the town, with a lot of activity at HQ (Aunt Matilda is sadly underused) and Arden catches the atmosphere of twilight well. He also injects plenty of humour into the boys dialogue, though the end piece with Hector Sebastien and Don is as uncomfortable as ever. It’s not a bad read, in and of itself, but it’s not a patch on Arden’s earlier books in the series and I can see why it’s taken me so long to get back to it. Another book that’s worth a read for completists but doesn’t stand as a good taster for the series as a whole.

[sonofabook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jemand ist in Rocky Beach unterwegs und zerstört Autoscheiben. Es scheint immer montags und mittwochs zu passieren. Doch so sehr sich die Polizei auch bemüht, die Person ist immer einen Schritt schneller.
Doch die drei ??? haben andere Möglichkeiten als die Polizei und sind der Person auf der Spur.
Doch parallel werden sie von einem alten Mann bezichtigt, seine wertvolle Münze gestohlen zu haben.
So beginnen die drei Detektive den beiden Rätseln auf die Spur zu kommen.

Lange ist es her, dass ich eine Folge gehört habe und es hat mal wieder Spaß gemacht. Aber die Folge an sich war nur mittelmäßig. Der alte Herr war zu übertrieben dargestellt und der Fall war jetzt auch nicht der spektakulärste.
Ebenso hätte es den Parallelfall nicht gebraucht.

[Rajeev Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

My enjoyment of this book mostly came from the power of nostalgia. As for the mystery, it was pretty tame compared to what The Three Investigators have dealt with in the past. The motivation for the crime was pedestrian too. No subtle and big-time criminals like Schimdt (Moaning Cave), or the Amazing Gabbo (Crooked Cat) and no brilliant denouement either.

I tried reading the 1990 reboot of this series - Crimebusters - right after this book, a book called Hot Wheels, where the boys were 17 year old and into Judo and a bevy of girls and found that the older series was definitely better, even an average book like Smashing Glass.

[Joe Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

How the clever have become mundane. Somehow this book reminded my of an Encyclopedia Brown 2 minute mystery stressed to a novella. This slight mystery might not have even been interesting enough for Donald Sobol to waste a few pages on. A far cry from the first books in the series by creator Robert Arthur who disdained the mundane.
Still the characters of the three investigators were reasonably interesting and they used the Rolls Royce again so not a total waste and narrowly avoiding a single star.

[Vincent T. Ciaramella · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a kid, this was one of the books that took me forever to find at my local bookstore. I remember finally finding it and being so excited. I also remember loving it but until I started reading it to my son almost 40 years later I forgot what it was about. It was cool revisiting this one as it held a special place for me in my heart. My son liked this one as well. It’s different as it’s more of a “who-done-it” with no supernatural plot. I would read this one again in a few years. We’re off to the beach in a few hours and are taking The Secret of Shark Reef with us.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lackluster mystery, unlikely behavior by a crook (spying on the Investigator’s nearly every move), and there’s not nearly as much humor as there usually is. 2.5 stars.

On the positive side, the Ghost-to-Ghost hookups, the Rolls Royce and Worthington, many of the secret entrances to Headquarters are back.

[Charley Schnuff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein guter Teil der Reihe, mir hat vor allem die musikalische Untermalung sehr gut gefallen, die war irgendwie anders als sonst. Auch die Geschichte war gut erzählt und spannend von den Sprechern vorgetragen.

[Jason Towers · Rating 2 out of 5]

So slight it reads like a bonus short story rather than a volume of the main series. Central plot is so thin it's only half a book, and the "mystery" isn't even half a mystery. On the plus side, well written and an easy read. 2½
#T3I

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tolle Geschichte um mein liebstes Detektivtrio aus Kindertagen....ach was sag ich da, auch jetzt noch :)

[JBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Buch bekommt von mir 3,5 Sterne x3

[Milia Rasmussen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was kind of boring if I have to be honest. But it was fine. Not the best in the series. I found one little mistake. But I found it a bit fun with the great Dane called hamlet.

[MCF · Rating 2 out of 5]

• In Rocky Beach werden serienweise Autoscheiben eingeschlagen (fast immer Fahrerseite); der Junge Paul bittet die drei ??? um Hilfe, nachdem es auch seinen Vater trifft – zusätzlich verschwindet eine seltene Münze („Doppeladler“).
• Justus organisiert eine „Telefonlawine“ und visualisiert die Vorfälle mit Pins auf einer Karte („101 Nadeln“): So versuchen sie, Muster und Revier zu erkennen und den Täter zu stellen.
• Sie überführen den Automarder: William Margon zertrümmert Scheiben, um den Umsatz (Glas/Verkauf) anzukurbeln und als Top-Verkäufer zu glänzen.
• Parallel wird klar: Es gibt noch einen zweiten Täter, den Adlerdieb, der William per Funk warnte und sogar das Telefon der Zentrale anzapfte, damit der Automarder als Ablenkung weiterläuft.
• Auflösung: Der Adlerdieb ist Sarah Temple: Sie stahl die Münze aus dem Auto ihres Onkels und schlug dafür ausgerechnet die Scheibe auf der Beifahrerseite ein (ein einmaliger Ausreißer in der Serie) – genau dieser Fehler verrät sie; Justus lockt sie mit einem fingierten Telefonat in die Werkstatt-Falle, Reynolds hört mit und nimmt sie fest.

[blank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kerrankin tuli kirjastossa vastaan 3 etsivää, jota en ollut lukenut. Pakko se oli ottaa. Eikä se ollut huono päätös. Vaikka kirjoissa juonet ovatkin melko samanlaisia, ne voi lukea alta kolmen tunnin eivätkä ne ole aivan mahtavia, niin silti aina kun kyseisen kirjasarjan kirjoja lukee niin tulee hyvä fiilis ja toivoo, että olisi itselläkin mahdollisuus perustaa etsivätoimisto ja saada rikollisia nalkkiin. Ja oishan se mustakultanen vuoden 1937 Rolls Royce Silver Cloudkin ihan mukava ajoneuvo.

[Colton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a terrible book, but just a sort of predictable and inconsequential mystery. A lot of these later books are easily skippable.

[Rohit Tiwari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Courageous, logically deductions and lets us keep guessing abou the mystery
overall good read.