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In the third book of a 26-book story arc, the Three Investigators are invited to the Jackson, California vineyard of their new friend Branko Petrovic for a Fourth of July celebration. Jupiter hopes the visit will bring him closer to solving the mystery of his long-dead mother, but his only clue is that she was Serbian - and her name, Amanda Morris, doesn't seem to fit.
After receiving a finder's fee from their summer's first case, the boys use part of their earnings to buy a used car, and Worthington drives them north. On the way, Bob shares a story his father told him about André Laurent, a French-Canadian counterfeiter and murderer who had been arrested in Jackson twenty-five years earlier, only to skip bail.
The story becomes all too real when the Three Investigators stumble upon Laurent's old counterfeiting operation - an offset press and engraved plates for printing one-hundred-dollar bills - hidden in a cavern at the back of Branko's family's property.
Though surprised by a colony of bats deep inside, the boys soon make an even more startling discovery: Laurent has returned to reclaim his stolen plates. And now, the Three Investigators are holding the very evidence he'll kill to get back.
Where has André Laurent been for the past twenty-five years and why has he burned off his own fingerprints? How does he find out where The Three Investigators are staying? And how is all of this connected to Jupiter's mysterious past? As fireworks light up the sky at Dragutin Wines, Jupiter uncovers part of the truth about his mother, but a dangerous confrontation with Laurent leaves the boys facing life-threatening peril.
In The Mystery of the Chimeric Cornucopia and the 25 other new Three Investigators books, both old and new fans will find an America as classic as Robert Arthur's novels.
Join Jupiter, Pete, and Bob as they uncover hidden secrets in the shadow of an old crime, chase down a dangerous counterfeiter, and get closer to unraveling the mystery of Jupiter's past in this action-packed new entry in the Three Investigators legacy!
