William Arden (Dennis Lynds)

William Arden was the first author to take up the reins of the series after Robert Arthur (although Arden did write "Moaning Cave" prior to Robert Arthur's death). His style of writing initially seemed similar to that of Robert Arthur, but as time (and the books) went on, he brought his own unique style to the series. For example, it is William Arden who perpetually uses the word "fellows" as a noun of address when one of the boys is talking to the other two.

As indicated in the title above, William Arden was a pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, who also wrote books under the names of Michael Collins, Brett Halliday, Maxwell Grant, Mark Sadler, Carl Dekker, and John Crowe. Lynds used this last pseudonym (John Crowe) in "Shark Reef" as the name of a character who serves as the boys' client and is a mystery writer.

William Arden gets credit for one of the boys' inventions that lives through many of the books-the directional finders. These devices could be used to track the location of the other pair of devices; each directional finder also had a red light that lit up when one of the boys said "Help" near their respective receiver. These devices were used in "Crooked Cat," "Shrinking House," "Monster Mountain," "Deadly Double," and others. All in all, one of the more clever inventions of Jupiter Jones.

Dennis Lynds was the last surviving author of the original series until 2005, when he passed away unexpectedly.  You can look at his website at www.dennislynds.com

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