"Poisoned E-Mail"
A Brand New Three Investigators Novel - In English
Original German story by Ben Nevis
translated into "American-English" by Andreas Zantop.
This
cold and damp Spring afternoon, I finished reading the newly released Three
Investigators title "Poisoned E-mail" by Ben Nevis. In total, it only took me
three hours spread across two reading sessions to complete the novel.
Remembering the dire warnings from some German fans
of the series that this title wasn't up to scratch and should be avoided, I
started reading "Poisoned E-mail" with some misgivings. Would I finish the book
with a bad taste in my mouth? Would the experience taint my overall impression
of the German Three Investigators series? I'm pleased to report that the answer
to both of the above questions is a resounding NO.
On the contrary, I found the story to be a most enjoyable read, in which modern
technology is excellently utilized in an interesting and engaging plot. Overall,
I would rank this title as being more readable than some of the weaker entries
in the original series and better than most of the Crimebusters novels. I have
attempted to summarise the best and worse aspects of this book in the following
paragraphs without giving away any information that may spoil the story for
anyone who has not read it yet.
UPSIDES
As I've already mentioned, "Poisoned E-mail" makes good use of modern computing
and internet technology without getting clogged down in jargon or unnecessary
complexities. For example, there are references to items such as 'Bulk Mail',
'Computer Viruses' and 'Internet Cafes'; familiar to us all, but of course alien
to the Alfred Hitchcock era of the series.
Along similar lines, the 'Ghost-to-Ghost Hook up' makes a return in this story,
albeit it in a slightly more modern manner. Instead of contacting five
acquaintances via the telephone in Headquarters, Jupiter utilizes the Internet
and spreads his request via email, bringing this Robert Arthur invention into
the 21st century!
Speaking of Mr Hitchcock, while the book contains no introduction from either
the film director or his successor Hector Sebastian, a couple of references are
made to Hitch in the story - one mention by Jupe is very direct and obvious,
while the other is more amusing and subtle. Let's give full marks to Ben Nevis
for proverbially tipping his hat in the direction of the mentor of the series.
Refreshingly, this story (incidentally the 6th book to be written by Nevis for
the German series) lacks many of the elements that made the Crimebusters series
so unpopular among the fans. Although it is true that the book chronologically
takes place after the aforementioned series, the boys no longer rely on their
cars; reverting to bikes most of the time. The role of the girlfriends has been
significantly downplayed too and Bob appears to have left his job with the music
agency. Most importantly of all, the three protagonists are not characterised in
a blatantly stereotypical manner. You won't find the nerd, the jock and the
pretty-boy in "Poisoned E-Mail".
Although there are a couple of references to Jupiter's weight, the humour is
generally very amusing and well-implemented by Nevis. As always, there is a
scene in which Pete bemoans Jupe's use of long words; then later Bob and Jupiter
tease Pete mercilessly for calling his girlfriend Kelly a "sweetheart".
Detractors of the Crimebusters novels may cringe at the mention of Kelly, but I
think the story overall successfully achieves its aim of being a hybrid of the
original and Crimebusters series. Did I mention that the "See-All" periscope in
Headquarters also makes its welcome return here?
The Dick Perry character is perhaps one of the most ironically amusing creations
of the entire series. With an outward appearance of a dim-witted and slovenly
oath who only became a detective because he wasn't bright enough to do anything
else, Perry turns out to be a rather sharp individual. He is more than a match
for Jupiter and manages to keep up with the Three Investigators at every step of
their inadvertent joint investigation into the Jellyfish.
The irony, as seasoned 3I fans will recognise, comes from that fact that, in
previous cases, Jupiter himself often used the tactic of playing dumb to trick
people into thinking that he was nothing more than an overweight simpleton
("Rogues Reunion" and "Fiery Eye" are two examples that spring immediately to
mind where this tactic is used to varying degrees of success).
The plot, without wishing to give away any specific details of the story, is a
proper mystery yarn with a decent enough sprinkling of suspects, clues, leads
and red-herrings. The eagle-eyed reader may be able to deduce the solution to
the story if they take note of a few strands of information casually mentioned
by Nevis over the course of the novel (a feature in the best tradition of the 3I
series).
In my personal opinion, one of the main elements that a successful Three
Investigators mystery story has to have (or any mystery story for that matter)
is a tense, dramatic and exciting climax, with the proper resolution of the plot
perhaps including the odd twist or two. Think of the classic Arthur stories,
where the boys would be running through a fog-enshrouded graveyard, exploring a
haunted castle, or hunting for a painting in a room full of screaming clocks.
Although the end of "Poisoned E-mail" is not quite in the same league as the
aforementioned titles, it is a satisfying climax to a fun and intriguing yarn.
The lads face a couple of dangerous situations before a typical Jupiter 'moment'
leads to the final revelation - finally making sense of the clues and riddles
uncovered by the boys throughout the course of the novel.
DOWNSIDES
There
are a few negative things to say about "Poisoned E-mail" and I will not be
providing an accurate review if I neglected to mention them. First of all, while
the story is undoubtedly a fun read, the actual text itself is badly written
with a great deal of poor grammar to be found. Whether this is the fault of the
author or the translator it is difficult to say, but I certainly favour the
latter explanation.
One has to remember that the target audience of this book was intended to be
German students learning the English language who probably wouldn't need to
worry about the quality of the translation - for their purposes I would imagine
it is perfectly satisfactory. However, for people more au fait with the
language, some of the errors stand out like the proverbial sore thumb. One major
example is where the word 'trace' is used several times where the correct word
to use should really be 'lead'.
As Valerie has already mentioned in her review of "Curse of the Cell Phone", the
original German names for the characters are used (Justus Jonas and Peter Shaw).
This may seem like a major obstacle in enjoying the book at first, but once I
got into the story, I found myself overlooking the difference - 'Justus' is
close enough to 'Jupiter' for it not to be a jarring change.
More difficult to overlook is the continued use of 'Die Drei ???' where the
proper translation would of course be 'The Three Investigators'. This is a very
annoying feature of the book and difficult to ignore, although understandable
considering the target audience perhaps.
What many will consider being the biggest negative aspect of this story is the
use of swearing in the dialogue, including terms such as "d*ckhead" (twice),
"slimy fat bugger" and "sly cow". As a 24-year old male living in the UK, I
found the use of these terms hilarious and realistic (I distinctly recall
hearing worse in the school playground when I was 10). Nevertheless, these words
should not have been used, as many parents and teachers would never consider
adding such a book to their children's bookshelves that contained this sort of
taboo language.
Interestingly, the new Hardy Boys Undercover series, just only recently released
in the USA, also contains some swearing (in one book, Frank is said to be "p*ssed
off"). Perhaps this is a modern development in juvenile stories where some mild
profanity is deemed acceptable? I'm personally more inclined to say that the
existence of the bad language in "Poisoned E-mail" is more due to cultural
differences between the USA and Germany than anything else.
My last problem with this story, is the complete lack of any mention of Robert
Arthur at the start of the book. Normally in the German series, the usual
disclaimer stating "Based on the characters originally by Robert Arthur" can be
found on the copyright page, but sadly here it is completely absent. Please
amend this omission on your next release, Kosmos!
CONCLUSION
Despite these shortcomings, I found "Poisoned E-mail" to be a fun, enjoyable and
refreshing addition to the Three Investigators canon. The reviewers on both
Rocky-Beach.com and Amazon.de seem to agree with me and I rank this title as
being better than a handful of the original series including "Cranky Collector",
"Kidnapped Whale" and "Creep-Show Crooks".
Overall, if you can stomach the negative elements listed above, this is a worthy
addition to any Three Investigators collection.
Ian Regan (September 2005).