The Mystery of the Obdurate Outcast

A Magic 8 Ball. An eight-sided house. And a summer job Skinny won't forget. Step into mysteries that demand courage, discernment, and the will to seek the truth. Conceived and co-written by the daughter of Robert Arthur - the creator of the Three Investigators universe - this restoration of the classic series takes its iconic characters into a new age, with gripping contemporary adventures for young readers who crave meaning, want to share in the growth of characters they admire, and seek a world they can return to again and again. In the fifteenth book of a 26-book story arc, Jupiter sees a news report about the sudden death of U.S. Senator Jack Hayden and is immediately struck by strange contradictions in past reports about the Senator's activities. Meanwhile, The Three Investigators are drawn into a blackmail scheme targeting the Haldorsson family, and they quickly uncover a disturbing connection to the late politician. The blackmailer is Draven Chandler, an enigmatic transhumanist who runs the mysterious Institute for Eternal Consciousness - a place as spooky as it is exclusive. When the team discovers that their old foe, Skinny Norris, is working there for the summer, they wonder if he might actually be of use for once. But things take a dangerous turn when Skinny is nearly killed in what appears to be an accident at the Institute, leading The Three Investigators to dig deeper into Draven Chandler's past - particularly his connection to a Mayan-inspired commune from his childhood. Meanwhile, Mallory stumbles upon a 16th-century Spanish morrión at the Salvage Yard, which holds in its bowl a never-delivered letter from Jupiter's late father to his old friend, Septimus Halfpenny - a brilliant physicist living in an eight-sided house overlooking the Pacific. With his help, the Investigators set a trap for Chandler, appealing to his vanity and his odd beliefs. But the plan takes an unexpected turn, and soon Jupiter and Septimus find themselves in a life-or-death struggle with a very clever man. What is Draven Chandler really after? How does his haunted past connect to the blackmail plot? Will the ghost of an old acquaintance and a Magic 8 ball lure him into a big mistake? And most importantly, will The Three Investigators survive their final confrontation with a man as grandiose as he is delusional? Join Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Mallory as they face a villain whose ambition is matched only by his ruthlessness. Draven Chandler will stop at nothing to manipulate and control, and the Investigators must find a way to outwit him before he destroys everything in his path.


Elizabeth Arthur 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. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book. She is the co-author, with her husband Steven Bauer, of the 26 mystery/adventure novels in the New Three Investigators series (2025-2027.)