A cry from the wild. A chase across open water. And a villain who holds the helm. Step into mysteries that demand courage, discernment, and the will to seek the truth. Conceived and co-written by the daughter of Robert Arthur – the creator of the Three Investigators universe – this restoration of the classic series takes its iconic characters into a new age, with gripping contemporary adventures for young readers who crave meaning, want to share in the growth of characters they admire, and seek a world they can return to again and again. In the fifth book of a 26-book story arc, Pete is shocked when he stumbles upon what he thinks is a wildlife-smuggling operation right there in Rocky Beach. During a visit to Veronica's Exotic Birds, Pete meets Rafael Solares, a man with ties to both the Chumash people and the local Hispanic community, and a scarlet macaw named Rojo who speaks in strange, cryptic phrases. Rafael, who has just purchased Rojo from a mysterious Mexican seller at a farmer's market, is determined to get to the bottom of why the bird was sold for so little. When Rafael shows up at The Salvage Yard with a troubling tale, The Three Investigators are drawn into a complicated tangle involving the band Existential Evil. The band's lead singer is the son of Rafael's old high school English teacher, Wally, who has recently adopted a group of capybaras found wandering near Santa Barbara. Adding to the mystery, endangered hyacinth macaws have appeared in Wally's barn, and the connections between the animals and the strange events deepen. The investigation takes The Three Investigators to Isla Vista. But when a routine reconnaissance mission ends in disaster, Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Mallory are split into two teams—one held captive on a speeding sailboat and the other engaged in a high-speed chase on Rafael's boat The Rainbow Bridge. What is the true story behind the capybaras and the macaws? Why did the Mexican man sell Rojo for so little? What is the clue hiding in a carillon's electronic music? What role is being played in all this by Veronica's Exotic Birds? How are Wally Tate's son and his band-mate Slade DeMarco involved, and what are they hiding? Join Jupiter, Pete, Bob, and Mallory as they unravel a mystery involving wildlife smuggling and a deadly chase on the high seas. You'll want to be part of the action as the two halves of the team work together, miles apart, in the darkness of night. Elizabeth Arthur is the author of five literary novels (Beyond the Mountain, Bad Guys, Binding Spell, Antarctic Navigation, and Bring Deeps) and two memoirs (Island Sojourn and Looking for the Klondike Stone.) Her books have been published by Harper and Row, Doubleday, Knopf, and Bloomsbury U.K. She has received fellowships and grants from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Vermont Council on the Arts, the Ossabaw Island Project, and the Indiana Arts Commission. She twice received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and was the first novelist ever given an Antarctic Artists and Writers Operational Support Grant from the National Science Foundation. Her novel Antarctic Navigation was chosen by the New York Times as a Notable Book. Steven Bauer is the author of three books for young people, the young adult fantasy Satyrday, the middle grade novel A Cat of a Different Color, and The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle, a picture book in verse. Bauer's writing has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. He has also been given grants and awards from Prairie Schooner, the Ossabaw Island Project, the Massachusetts Arts Council, and the Indiana Arts Commission.