I've read a Nancy Drew and a Hardy Boys mystery this year, both of which I read while I was growing up, and they didn't hold up well. I'm please to report the Three Investigators has held up much better. (NB: based on a sample size of one). Perhaps they were written just that little bit later? (This one is from 1977). Girls are in reasonably short supply and are annoying, but at least are plucky ("feisty", in the current parlance). Mexican housekeepers are motherly, wise, and provide plenty of delicious food. The excuse for the Three Investigators nosing around is suitably slim. Of the Three Investigators themselves, Jupe is the only real personality (he IS the brains of the operation); Pete and Bob are relatively bland. (NB I liked that Bob is officially "records and research" and knows how to look up things on microfilm because his Dad's a newspaper man). But I liked it nonetheless! The Three Investigators are much better than those Hardy Boy punks.

My copy: also a second-hand find, $3 is written on the title page but I suspect I also got this in that wonderful $5 bag-o-books from the Winchelsea op shop. It was discarded from the Glenelg Regional Library and has two full pages of borrowing slips pasted inside the front cover; this copy was first borrowed in May 1979 and last borrowed in September 2000. It was apparently quite popular with borrowers throughout the 1980s but access really dropped off in the 90s.