The Three Investigators #37 Two-Toed Pigeon and #38 Smashing Glass

In the Three Investigators #37, The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon, the Three Investigators meet a man named Blinky in a diner.  Blinky has a wrapped package that he leaves behind by mistake.  The boys take the package to headquarters for safekeeping and discover that it contains a pigeon with two toes on one foot.  The next day, the boys check on the bird and discover that it now has three toes on each foot.

The boys' investigation leads them to Miss Melody, who has a mystery of her own.  Her birds are being killed!  The boys suspect that Blinky, their pigeon, and Miss Melody's mystery are all connected.

The book is The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon.  Why doesn't the cover show a two-toed pigeon?

The following passage is from pages 43-44.

"Great," Pete told him.  "So we find the murderer's footprints.  What do we do then?  Take a plaster cast of them and try to find out where he bought his shoes?"

Jupe sighed.

You tell him, Pete!  He has just pointed out how a plastic cast of a footprint is absurdly expected to provide the solution to a mystery.  I always want to roll my eyes when I read a Nancy Drew book, and Nancy notes a tire pattern or makes a plaster cast which always leads her directly to the villain.  After all, the villain is the only person in the world who wears those shoes or has that kind of tire, right?

In this book, Jupiter is worried about his weight.  At times, this distracted me from the story.  During Chapter 12, "Jupe Has a Plan," Jupiter reasons out the solution while he eats a sandwich.  He tears the sandwich in half so that he won't eat all of it.  As he talks through the solution with Pete and Bob, he absentmindedly tears off additional pieces and eats them.  The chapter ends with Jupe realizing with dismay that he ate the entire sandwich.  My attention was fixated upon the sandwich because I knew what was going to happen.  I was so distracted by the sandwich that I quit paying attention to the conversation.  After I finished the chapter, I had to read through a couple of pages again so that I could follow Jupiter's reasoning.

I enjoyed this book.

In the Three Investigators #38, The Mystery of the Smashing Glass, car windows all over town are breaking, and no one can figure out how or why.  The Three Investigators take the case when their new friend, Paul, is no longer allowed to drive his father's truck because the window keeps breaking.  Paul insists that he did not break the window.

As the boys work out possible solutions, they gradually realize that the culprit somehow knows their plans.  How is this possible?

On page 82, Bob explains that a satellite dish allows people to watch television shows without having to pay a cable company.  Pete remarks, "That sure sounds like Jarvis Temple."  Temple is a very disagreeable old man, so that remark comes across as critical towards satellite dishes.  It sounds like the author didn't agree with the idea of people avoiding cable companies!

I greatly enjoyed this book.