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The Three Investigators: Difference between revisions
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* [[Exact Words]]: The prize Jupiter won was to have a Rolls Royce at his disposal for 30 days. When one month was nearly over, Jupiter argued that 30 days actually amount to 720 ''hours of service''.
** Many riddles and puzzles in the series rely on these, but one of the best is ''Laughing Shadow'': the Chumash chief whose [[Famous Last Words]] tell the location of the hoard said "it is in the eye of the sky where no man can find it". {{spoiler|It's hidden ''literally'' in an "eye of the sky", a cave inside a high mountain shaped like an Indian's head, with the cave inside the eye...and it is small enough no man can enter it, but a child or young teen can.}}
** "Blood is very bad for fine steel," the menacing "Three Dots" character in ''Fiery Eye'' said as he wiped something red and sticky off the blade of his [[Sword Cane]]. {{spoiler|He'd put that sticky red whatever-it-was on the blade '''just''' so he could try to intimidate the boys with it, and in the end they made a profitable bargain with him, because he was retrieving stolen property for its rightful owners. Ethically speaking, they should've just '''given''' it to him.}}
* [[Expy]]: Based on the names of the characters involved (Kulak, Demetrieff, Kerenov) and the coup which took place in the [[Backstory]], the plot of ''Flaming Footprints'' reads like a search for the lost crown jewels of Imperial Russia.
** The bandit referenced in ''Moaning Cave'' sounds much like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquin_Murrieta Joaquin Murrieta] -- right down to the legends that he'd survived.
* [[Fakin' MacGuffin]]: In ''Phantom Lake'', Java Jim wants a journal that the boys have which was written in the mid 1800s, with potential clues to a [[Buried Treasure]]. Jupiter hands it over, then after Jim leaves he reveals that he only gave up the oilskin cover of the journal, having taken the pages out first.
* [[Faking the Dead]]: {{spoiler|Stephen Terrill}}.
* [[Frame-Up]]: Happens fairly often, such as: Harry's father in ''Screaming Clock'', Stebbins in ''Phantom Lake'', Pico in ''Headless Horse''.
* [[Freudian Trio]]: Arguably the [[Beauty, Brains, and Brawn]] variation, with Jupiter as [[The Smart Guy]], Peter as [[The Big Guy]] and Bob as the most sociable one. Though the Freudian model (Jupiter - Superego, Pete - Ego, Bob - Id) might cast an interesting light on [[Alternate Character Interpretation|tentative hidden sides of]] [[Covert Pervert|Bob Andrews]] ...
* [[Fridge Logic]]: An in-story case comes up in ''Moaning Cave'' when someone mentions a Native American legend about "a black and shiny monster no one could see." If no one could see it, one of the Investigators promptly asks, how did they know it was black and shiny?
* [[Friendly Enemy]]: Hugenay again.
* [[Gaslighting]]: While the intent was only to distract her or force her to leave the estate so the museum robbery could go off as planned, the exploitation of Letitia Radford's fear of scarecrows and bugs in the titular ''Sinister Scarecrow'' is malicious enough to count as this trope, and she nearly does go mad. Ends up being subverted, however, when the villains' concern that the boys will catch on to their scheme leads to the scarecrow attacking the boys, thus proving it isn't just in Letitia's head.
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* [[Identical Stranger]]: [[Those Two Guys|Hans and Konrad]]'s cousin Anna has one {{spoiler|thus leading to [[Kill and Replace|Imprison and Replace]] by her [[Criminal Doppelganger]] so that her con man partner can marry her and steal Anna's money from her safe deposit box. Foreshadowed by her odd refusal to speak German, which the con man [[Imposter Forgot One Detail|hadn't expected her to have to know]].}}
* [[Imposter Forgot One Detail]]: {{spoiler|The con man pretending to be Wesley Thurgood in ''Death Trap Mine'' forgot/didn't know the real Thurgood had blue eyes.}}
** The identity of one villain is hinted at because of an incorrect detail he '''adds''': he genuinely has a theory that a certain historical figure was left-handed and this hadn't made it into the history books. When he disguises himself as that fellow, he uses his left hand. The Investigators find the long-dead body of the historical person ... pistol clutched in his '''right''' hand.
* [[Kick the Dog]]: While a number of villains do terrible things (for a kids' series version of terrible--as usual, none of them ever commit murder that we know of), two which stand out would be the villain of ''Laughing Shadow'' who indulges in child slave labor to find the treasure and {{spoiler|Mrs. Chumley}} of ''Sinister Scarecrow'' who uses {{spoiler|her}} knowledge of Letitia Radford to create the terrorizing scarecrow; this last is one of the few things keeping {{spoiler|her}} from being a completely sympathetic villain.
* [[Kid Detective|Kid Detectives]]: The basic formula.
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* [[Magnetic Plot Device]]: Also happens a lot, usually with whatever item they're seeking or the clue which will solve the mystery/find the treasure, but the titular crooked cat and the paintings from ''Shrinking House'' take the cake.
* [[Master of Disguise]]: Stephen Terrill, [[Famed in Story|the Man of a Thousand Faces]].
* [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]]: In ''Silver Spider'', a [[Roma|gypsy seer, Old Anton]], is asked by the [[Big Bad]] to interrogate the Investigators. He does so with hypnotism assisted by an apparently narcotic incense, and discerns all they know ... including that one of them [[Easy Amnesia|has lost his memory]] -- the one who'd hidden the MacGuffin, and no one else knows where. But then the villain asks Old Anton for a prophecy. The seer tells him, "As to the Silver Spider, though silver, it is only a spider. As to your ambition, I hear a bell ringing victory." [[Exact Words|He never said '''whose''' victory]]. And the Silver Spider, {{Spoiler|being "only a spider," was tucked inside a real spider's web in a corner of the room}}.
* [[Mummies At the Dinner Table]]: Borderline example--while as far as we know Mr. Green of the Green Mansion never did this with his wife's corpse, he did stash her body in a secret room in his house, laid out in a coffin with her finest clothes and the [[Mineral MacGuffin|Ghost Pearls]].
* [[Mystery Fiction]]
* [[Mystery Magnet|Mystery Magnets]]: A corollary to being a [[Kid Detective]].
* [[Needle in a Stack of Needles]]: This nearly gets one of the Investigators killed. One of the Investigators finds himself locked in the trunk of a car driven by a group of criminals, but managed to mark the floor of the garage the car will eventually return to with a large chalk "X", and even informs the other investigators of this via a walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, a [[Jerk Jock]] was listening in and had his gang mark every garage they could get into just to be an ass.
* [[Never Say "Die"]]: Although the boys never really come too close to death, the danger they suffer is often very real and both they and their families worry about getting injured or killed. Of course the worst violence they usually suffer is getting knocked out and/or [[Bound and Gagged]]/[[Locked in a Freezer]]. But in ''Dead Man's Riddle'' they do almost [[Inevitable Waterfall|go over a waterfall]], and in the early book ''Green Ghost'', when Jensen asks Mr. Won what to do if the boys don't turn over the Ghost Pearls, [[Wham! Line|he coldly tells him to slit their throats]]. They are also held at gunpoint several times (''Stuttering Parrot'', ''Vanishing Treasure'', ''Screaming Clock'', ''Laughing Shadow'', ''Flaming Footprints'', ''Shrinking House'') and are left to die in the desert in ''Death Trap Mine''. Also, in ''Moaning Cave'' there's a sequence of squirming through a tight underground passage ... and getting stuck for a few seconds: [[Nightmare Fuel]] for anyone with [[Claustrophobia]].
* [[Not Me This Time]]: Hugenay, in ''Screaming Clock''.
* [[Obfuscating Disability]]: {{spoiler|Mrs. Chumley in ''Sinister Scarecrow''.}}
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** {{spoiler|Java Jim of ''Phantom Lake'' turns out to be this crossed with either [[Latex Perfection]] or [[Expressive Mask]].}}
* [[Working the Same Case]]: Two examples, both early in the series--in ''Whispering Mummy'' Pete, fed up with the seemingly supernatural case, decides to go off on his own to investigate a missing cat, only to find out it connects to the mummy. Then in ''Vanishing Treasure'' the bank robbery being performed by the "gnomes" they investigate turns out to be perpetrated by the same thieves who stole the Emperor's belt from the museum which had forbidden them from getting involved ([[Not Now, Kiddo|because they were "just kids"]]).
* [[Yellow Peril]]: Mr. Won of ''Green Ghost''. If the definition of "Yellow" is stretched to include India, then "Three-Dots" from ''Fiery Eye''.
* [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]]: Fairly frequent, when either the lost item they're searching for literally does turn out to be somewhere else or they encounter a [[Red Herring]]. One particularly memorable example is in ''Stuttering Parrot'' when, after following every clue to the Merita Valley graveyard, the long flat box which had once held the painting is discovered holding only a note saying, essentially, "[[A Loser Is You|You didn't read the clues well enough, better luck next time!]]" The last parrot clue, "I never give a sucker an even break, and that's a lead pipe cinch!" even lampshades this...{{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|until it turns out]] it was actually a stealth clue telling them the lead pipe found in the graveyard is the actual hiding place for the painting}}. Another example in ''Fiery Eye'' not only involves them looking in the wrong bust for the titular jewel, but finding a [[Mock Guffin]] version of it.
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