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The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs

The Three Investigators

The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs by M.V. Carey, 1981.

Jupiter Jones and his friends are helping out at his uncle’s salvage yard when they have a strange encounter with a disagreeable customer and his wife. Mr. Barron is a very demanding customer who throws a fit whenever something goes wrong, blaming other people when he’s at least somewhat at fault for what happens. He gets upset when one of the employees of the salvage yard tells him that they need to move his car because they’re expecting a delivery truck, and his car is in the way where he parked it. Mr. Barron gets angry because he parked his car “perfectly”, and he calls them incompetent for making him move.

The only reason why Mr. Jones puts up with Mr. Barron is that he’s buying a large amount of stuff, and it’s stuff that few other people would want, like a buckboard wagon, an old stove and stovepipes, and a broken butter churn. The weird thing is that Mr. Barron doesn’t seem interested in these things as antique collectibles or unique pieces of vintage decor, which would be what most people would use such things for. (I’m thinking of those restaurants where they have miscellaneous farm implements, wagon wheels, and antique/vintage items on the walls, and I think that’s what they’re thinking about, too.) Mr. Barron actually seems to want to fix them up and use them for their intended purposes.

Mrs. Barron glosses over her husband’s rudeness and talks about her belief in aliens as described by a popular book called They Walk Among Us. This book describes “the time for deliverance”, when our planet will be in danger from some kind of disaster, and aliens from the planet Omega will arrive to rescue people from the human race so our species won’t be lost. Mr. Jones thinks that the Barrons are crazy, but his own wife interrupts the conversation before Mr. Jones can say something that will ruin the sale.

Jupiter is intrigued by these weird people, and he persuades his uncle to let him and his friends go along on the trip to deliver all of the things they bought to their ranch up north. Jupiter’s friends are a little reluctant to see the Barrons again, but Jupiter points out that going on the delivery trip will allow them to also go on a buying trip at the same time, something that his uncle has promised them they can do. Jupiter has been wanting to take charge of a buying trip, but he also wants to learn more about the Barrons.

Before they leave, the boys do some research on Mr. Barron and learn that he came from a wealthy business family in the Midwest. However, he has been in and out of trouble with every business he’s ever run. He did pretty well at first after he inherited his family’s business, which made tractors, but then, workers went on strike for better pay and working conditions. Mr. Barron was forced to give them what they wanted, but he was so angry about the strike and being forced to make concessions that he sold that business and bought a different one. In his next business, he had problems complying with government anti-pollution regulations, so he sold that business and bought another one. In his third business, he was sued for discriminatory hiring processes, so he once again sold out and tried another business.

Since then, he has had a string of different businesses, and each and every time, he ran into some kind of problem with government regulations or labor disputes. Every time he has any kind of problem in business, he immediately quits that type of business entirely rather than sticking to it and working things out. He just can’t accept imperfection in any form, and he defines imperfection as anybody or anything that goes against what he, personally, wants to do, regardless of circumstances. He denies that he could be imperfect himself, that he needs to adjust to new or changing situations, or that he needs to improve in any way, blaming everyone else for all of his problems. Finally, unable to find any business where everything goes absolutely perfectly all the time, where there are no rules or standards to follow other than his own and nobody to check that he’s following them, and where he never gets any form of negative feedback, Mr. Barron decided to sell off his remaining business interests and buy a ranch in California, which is where he is now. He’s planning to use the ranch to experiment with new crops and self-sufficient living.

When the boys arrive at the ranch with one of Mr. Jones’s delivery drivers, Konrad, they realize that the ranch is a kind of commune. The people who work for Mr. Barron and live at the ranch show them around and explain how the ranch has its own power supply and water supply. Elsie, who is the cook at the ranch, tells them that Mr. Barron seems to be preparing for some kind of “revolution”, when there will be some kind of catastrophe and society falls apart. (Remember, for Mr. Barron, society and all other humans besides Mr. Barron are idiots and incompetents, so of course, everything is falling apart.) Most of the people at the ranch don’t really believe that’s going to happen. They’re there mainly because Mr. Barron hired them to work there. However, it seems like the Barrons are deep into this notion of a coming disaster.

Konrad thinks that this ranch is very weird, and he wants to leave, but the boys persuade him that they should accept Mrs. Barron’s invitation to stay for dinner. Konrad chooses to eat with the staff rather than face Mr. Barron again. During dinner, the boys are treated to Mr. Barron’s negative attitude about everything, from his disappointment in his adopted sons (and, by extension, in young people in general) to “the evils of plastic in almost any form”, from synthetic leather to polyester clothing. By contrast, Mrs. Barron is very fond of her adopted sons, one of whom is part of a rock band and the other of whom is a poet who supports himself by making wooden clogs. Mrs. Barron says that the rock drummer son will be coming to the ranch in August for the Blue Light Mission convention, a meeting of other people who also believe in aliens who will save humanity. The author of They Walk Among Us will also be there as a guest speaker. 

Although Mr. Barron seems to have at least some belief in the idea that society is falling apart because of “anarchists and criminals who want to take over”, his criticism of people in general also extends to his wife and the other people who attend these alien conventions and believe in They Walk Among Us. Even though he’s hosting this convention for his wife’s sake, he thinks that the convention attendees are a bunch of kooks and crazies who would victimize his wife if he didn’t keep an eye on her. Basically, both of the Barrons are conspiracy theorists, but they’re not following quite the same conspiracy theories. Mrs. Barron is the more positive and hopeful of the two of them, believing that things will somehow turn out okay when the aliens show up, cheerfully ignoring her husband’s negativity, and continuing to talk about how much she’s looking forward the convention and meeting other, like-minded people. By contrast, Mr. Barron thinks society is just going to fall apart, and it will be everyone for themselves, and that’s about it.

The Three Investigators’ involvement with the Barrons would have ended after their delivery errand and dinner, but when they try to leave the ranch, they are stopped by army officers. The officers tell them that the roads are closed because of orders from Washington. The boys and Konrad are forced to return to the ranch, and Mr. Barron is angry about the roads being closed. The army officers tell Mr. Barron that they are just following orders. They further say that something has happened in Texas, and because of that, there is no electrical power, and the telephones, televisions, and radios aren’t working. Elsie has a battery-operated radio, and she turns it on to find out what’s happening. They hear a speech, apparently from the US President, about unidentified aircraft being seen around Texas, New Mexico, and California and possible landings in those states.

Naturally, when confronted with this serious situation, Mr. Barron is ready to take charge and deal with it in his usual way – by immediately finding someone to blame, dishing out criticism, and calling other people stupid and incompetent. He complains that the President gave a stupid speech that doesn’t provide any useful information and that he can’t understand how this guy ever got elected in the first place. Then, he goes off on a rant against communists and anarchists. (Seriously, that’s how both this book and his thought processes go. In a way, he’s very 2020s, a man decades ahead of his time.) Elsie points out that the people at the ranch are safe, no matter what’s happening, because the ranch is designed to be self-sufficient. Mr. Barron may be an angry mess of paranoia and negativity, but he is thorough and has been planning ahead for disaster this entire time.

The military officers say that the roads are being blocked off to the public so they can be used for military vehicles. Mr. Barron becomes convinced that either some disaster has happened or that the politicians believe that one is imminent. He also thinks that the politicians blocked off the road to the ranch so they can come and shelter at his amazing, self-sufficient ranch themselves. (Once again, everyone else, from the government to the general public, is incompetent, and only Mr. Barron does things right. He further assumes that the rest of the world must somehow secretly know this, quietly envies him, and plots to take advantage of him.) There’s no sign of anyone else arriving, at least not yet, but Mr. Barron, who has a deep disdain for fools of all kinds, doesn’t like the idea of welcoming a bunch of political fools. However, he does show sympathy to the boys and Konrad because he can recognize that nothing that’s happening is their fault. He tells them that they’re welcome to stay at the ranch until this situation, whatever it is, is cleared up.

The Three Investigators decide that they need to find out what’s really happening in the cities outside of this ranch and verify what they’ve been told about the situation because everything was fine when they left home. Since they can’t leave by the road, they do a little scouting around the area to see if there’s a route they can use to walk to another town. Since it’s getting dark, they decide that it would be too dangerous to try hiking and climbing in the area at night. They plan to wait until morning to actually leave, but while they’re looking around, they witness something very strange. They see what looks like blue fire on the cliffs near the ranch and some kind of silver, oval-shaped object in the sky! Have they really witnessed a flying saucer? Is what Mrs. Barron believes about aliens coming to Earth true?

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

I love this Three Investigators mystery because the premise was so unusual! Three Investigators mysteries are often what I call Pseudo-Ghost Stories, like the mysteries in Scooby-Doo because any supernatural inevitably turns out to be faked in some way for some ulterior motive. This also applies to science-fiction other-worldly phenomena, like aliens. The great thing about this book is that the phenomena is so over-the-top that it’s difficult to think of a plausible way that it could be faked or a reasonable reason why someone would even do it. In this case, we know immediately that the boys see what looks like blue flames and a flying saucer, and there are either military personnel or people pretending to be military personnel blocking the roads out of the ranch. This is a plot that would seem to involve some impressive special effects and a significant cast of conspirators, and the purpose behind it doesn’t seem obvious.

Pretty early in the story, I had a couple of theories about who could profit from faking a UFO, but I had doubts about it because of the relatively small audience involved and because it seemed like there would be much easier methods of them accomplishing their goals. It is a pretty over-the-top plot, although it’s partially explained because Mr. Barron is a rather over-the-top figure to target. It is his paranoia and reluctance to call in authorities and outside help with anything that sets him up for this. Mr. Barron’s attitude that anything that contradicts him or his view of anything is inherently wrong cuts him off from the kind of reality checks he needs, even though he understands that his own wife can use some reality checks outside of her group of fellow alien enthusiasts. 

I knew that, for anybody to get the idea of doing this type of hoax and to plant the evidence to create the illusion of alien landings, one or more of the conspirators would have to be directly involved with the ranch. One of them is obvious, when you think about it, because it’s one of the people who directly supplies some of that evidence. Part of the mystery is about who else is involved. I could see multiple ways that could have gone, and I considered different possible masterminds for the scheme and different motives behind it. Most of what I considered turned out to be wrong, although my theory that Mrs. Barron could have engineered the whole thing with the help of her adopted sons and some friends from the alien conventions with the goal of demonstrating to Mr. Barron just how vulnerable his own paranoia and obsession with his personal conspiracy theories has made him would have been fun. Mrs. Barron may be gullible when it comes to her favorite alien conspiracy theory book, but I would have enjoyed a little role reversal, where she turns out to be more clued about human nature than Mr. Barron, who is so self-obsessed and ultra-skeptical about other people, refusing to receive information, advice, or criticism from anyone else, that he routinely fools himself without outside help. 

Alternatively, I though that the Barrons’ sons could have teamed up to pull this off to make both of the Barrons see the folly of their ways. In a way, I think that Mrs. Barron’s belief in the aliens is partly as a remedy to her husband’s relentless negativity. She believes him that disaster is impending because she actually thinks a lot of her husband and trusts his opinion on the way society is going, but being a more hopeful and trusting person, she has latched onto the idea of rescuing aliens because her husband doesn’t believe in fellow humans. Of course, Mr. Barron disdains that theory because he can tell that it comes from fellow human beings, who are all varying degrees of stupid, incompetent, and scheming, but Mrs. Barron clings to it as a hopeful thing that binds her to like-minded people because she needs that sense of hope and connection. At least, that’s how I read the situation. Mrs. Barron believes everything, even things she shouldn’t, and Mr. Barron refuses to believe anything, even things he should. There is a happy medium between believing everything other people say and allowing them to lead you around by the nose and being so paranoid that everyone is either wrong or out to trick you that you refuse to engage with the real world and turn aside legitimate sources of help and outside information. Neither of the Barrons represent that happy medium, and I would have liked the conspiracy to bring that to light. In a way, it does, but that’s not really the main focus. It’s more about taking advantage of the Barrons and their eccentricities.

I also considered the idea that the entire plot could have been a publicity stunt by the author of Mrs. Barron’s favorite book and the convention organizers. I even thought that Mrs. Barron might have been in on it as a true believer, trying to get her husband and others to believe. However, that’s not the case. The book and the convention just supply the inspiration for the conspiracy.

In a way, this story reminds me a little of the Sherlock Holmes story The Red-Headed League, where there’s a seemingly outlandish scheme to cover an ordinary theft. There is a twist to this one because nobody but Mr. Barron knows exactly where the thing they’re trying to steal is. In the end, only Jupiter reasons it out because he has really come to understand the way Mr. Barron’s mind works.

The mystery is intriguing because there are so many possibilities to consider. In a way, I preferred all the possibilities to the eventual resolution of the mystery, but the solution does make sense. It’s still an over-the-top plot that involves a significant number of people, equipment, and special effects, but it does appeal to my inner Scooby-Doo fan, who enjoys a good, complicated scheme and a villain behind the mask.

Posted on by TracyC

The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel

The Bodies in the Bessledorf Hotel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, 1986.

Officer Feeney is the first person who suggests that, someday, there might be a dead body at the Bessledorf Hotel. The hotel is coincidentally located next to the local funeral parlor, which is why the subject of dead bodies comes up, and Officer Feeney has a way of suggesting frightening things that scare Bernie Magruder, son of the hotel’s manager. Officer Feeney’s reasoning is that most people die in bed, so it only makes sense that some of them would be hotel beds. The hotel has 30 rooms, and with people coming and going, it’s surely just a matter of time before a guest dies there. It’s a morbid thought, although Bernie reasons that Officer Feeney is overestimating the number of people who pass through the hotel because it isn’t always full and some of the guests are long-term residents.

Still, Bernie gets a shock after he returns to the hotel, and the cleaning lady, Hildegarde bursts in on him and his parents, hysterical about finding a body in a bathtub of Room 107 with all his clothes on. Bernie’s father tells his wife to call Officer Feeney to write a report of the death and considers whether they can remove the body secretly, perhaps in a laundry cart, to avoid bad publicity for the hotel. Unfortunately, some of their guests already heard Hildegarde screaming about a dead body, so word is out. They want to know if it’s a case of murder or suicide and how it’s being investigated, and one of the long-term guests, who is a poet, has already written a short poem for the occasion.

However, by the time they all get to the room where Hildegarde saw the body, it’s gone. There is nothing in the bathtub, not even water. Officer Feeney shows up and demands to know what’s going on, and Hildegarde insists that she really saw something. The Magruders believe her, but they have no explanation for where the body could have gone. The guests speculate about body-snatchers and ghosts.

All they know about the man who occupied that room is that he gave his name as Phillip A. Gusset, he checked in the evening before, and he said that he would be leaving the next morning. Officer Feeney asks them if there was anything odd about him, like if he seemed nervous or unwell. Nobody remembers anything like that. They remember that he had a mustache and a hat with a red feather and just a single bag with him. He did kind of make Bernie’s parents uneasy, and he seemed to have a strange scent about him, although they find it difficult to describe what it actually smelled like. Officer Feeney says that, without a body or any evidence that something has happened, there doesn’t seem like anything to investigate. Bernie’s father is relieved that there won’t be any report of a murder or death occurring at the hotel because, otherwise, the owner might fire him. Bernie remembers that the man’s slippers were still in the room and goes to get them in case they’re evidence. When he gets there, he discovers that the slippers have mysteriously disappeared.

Bernie’s friends, Weasel and Georgene, think that people will probably never want to rent that hotel room ever again, and Bernie’s father renumbers the rooms so there will be no Room 107. Weasel convinces Bernie and Georgene to help him search the area for the body, thinking that whoever took it would most likely want to dispose of it quickly. They search down by the river, but they only find a bag of garbage that Bernie’s younger brother, Lester, left there to trick them.

Even though there’s no evidence that anything happened and the police aren’t investigating the situation, the incident of the disappearing guest appears in a newspaper in Indianapolis, where the hotel owner, Mr. Fairchild, lives. Mr. Fairchild calls the hotel to demand to know what’s going on. Mr. Fairchild says that he want the hotel to put on live entertainment in the evening on weekends to draw attention away from the incident and bring people in. However, he expects Bernie’s father to hire the entertainment out of his own money since Mr. Fairchild thinks this situation is his fault, and most entertainment is out of the Magruders’ price range. Fortunately, Bernie’s father has joined a barbershop quartet, so his group can do their singing at the hotel.

The singing goes well, but a strange woman with orange hair checks into the hotel and keeps making comments about dead bodies there. Then, one of the waiters finds this woman dead in her room, Room 321. Just like the first body, this body also vanishes. By this time, Bernie’s father suspects that the woman faked her “death” just to scare the waiter and ran away as soon as he was gone. As Bernie’s parents investigate the room, they notice an odd smell that reminds them of the first guest who disappeared. The smell really unnerves his father, but strangely, not his mother. It’s a faint smell that’s difficult to identify, but it conjures different images for both of them. Bernie’s father says it reminds him of sweaty clothes, cigars, and pastrami, while his mother says it makes her think of flowers and a porch swing in the evening.

The Magruders aren’t sure why someone wants to fake deaths at the hotel, but this latest faker didn’t pay for either her room or dinner, and somehow, the newspaper has heard about it and reported it again. Mr. Fairchild is angry, and Bernie knows that they need to figure out who the prankster is before they do it again!

The book is part of the Bessledorf mystery series, also known as the Bernie Magruder series. It is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction

Attempts to investigate the mystery alternate with the Magruders’ attempts at cheap hotel entertainment. The barbershop quartet works until one of the members gets laryngitis. Some of the guests start a food fight when the entertainment is bad. Then, Joseph gets some of his friends from the veterinary college who play instruments to come. Personally, I like the part where Lester suggests that they hold a haunted house at the hotel and take people on tours of the rooms where “dead” bodies have been found. They reject that idea, but there are hotels and bed-and-breakfasts that give haunted tours, and people come to investigate ghosts. That actually can be a successful gimmick. I once intentionally stayed in a supposedly haunted hospital that had been turned into a hotel in an old western mining town. A possible murder once occurred there, but I enjoyed the visit.

When a new guest shows up at the hotel with that same, strange scent, Bernie knows that it’s their culprit, back again in another disguise. Now that he knows who to watch, he starts planning how they’re going to trap the person.

I had a couple of ideas in beginning about who was doing all of this and why, but there are some surprising twists in the story. Bernie’s first attempt to catch the villain is weirdly thwarted by the discovery of a dead body that is actually a real, dead person. It’s not a guest; it’s a body stolen from the funeral parlor next door. The bad guy decided to change his tactics.

One of the clues to the person’s identity is that mysterious smell and the way it has an opposite effect on Bernie’s parents. It irritates Bernie’s father but makes his mother feel strangely nostalgic. The truth is that they’re both remembering the same thing or the same person, but although they can’t remember right away exactly what they’re remembering, they have very different feelings about it.

Surprisingly, although Mr. Fairchild threatens to replace Mr. Magruder with another manager, he actually shows up at the hotel himself and discovers that he likes playing detective and figuring out what’s going on. He’s also impressed with the way Mr. Magruder stayed to finish managing things even after he told him that he was planning to hire someone to replace him, and that secures the family’s position.

Posted on by TracyC

Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO

CJUFO

Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO by David A. Adler, 1980.

Cam Jansen‘s friend, Eric, wants to enter a photography contest.  All of the pictures for the contest must be taken in black-and-white, have to be “of local interest”, and must be completely natural, not posed.  As Cam and Eric look for things to photograph, Cam spots a kitten trapped in a tree.  Eric takes a picture of her rescuing the kitten.

Then, they see a bunch of people standing around, pointing at some strange, multi-colored lights in the sky.  A local newscaster even shows up to cover the mysterious lights and talk about UFOs.

Cam and Eric decide to investigate the area where it look like the UFOs landed.  When they get there, they spot some strange creatures with silvery skin and pointed heads!  However, it soon becomes obvious that these “aliens” aren’t what they appear to be.  They speak English, are called “Cindy” and “Steven”, and are actually covered in aluminum foil.  But, why are they playing alien, and what are the UFOs really about?

Cam decides to keep the cat that she rescued and names her Neptune.  When the true purpose behind the aliens’ hoax is revealed, Neptune helps to foil their plans.