The Wilderness Mysteries are a series of six juvenile novels published in the 1950s and reissued, often with new cover and interior artwork, in the 1960s by the Whitman Publishing Company. They were published as illustrated hardcovers without dust jackets. Unlike most juvenile series books of the time, the books do not have recurring characters; however, the main characters in each book are always young men on the cusp of manhood, about sixteen years old, enthusiastic and eager to explore the world. The recurrent themes are of natural phenomena-caves, canyons, mountains, sand dunes, and forests-and a sense of the past as seen through archaeology. Notwithstanding the fact that the books were written in the 1950s, they reflect a progressive view of women, Native Americans, and the environment, and often have characters who oppose corporate and government efforts to develop wilderness areas. This is not a surprise when one considers that Troy Nesbit was a nom de plume of the late Franklin Folsom, a graduate of the University of Colorado and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in 1928. The author of over eighty books under various names, he was also an avocational anthropologist and wrote several scholarly books on Native Americans of the American Southwest.
His six Whitman juvenile titles are: The Diamond Cave Mystery, The Forest Fire Mystery, The Indian Mummy Mystery, The Jinx of Payrock Canyon, The Mystery at Rustlers' Fort, and Sand Dune Pony.