26th May 2024
In their 113th novel, the Hardy Boys take up skateboarding (it is 1992 for them after all), meet up with some competitive skateboarders, and naturally get dragged into a skateboard-related mystery.
As they go, it’s a fairly standard Hardy Boys adventure, although none of the regular side characters make an appearance, meaning their traditional roles in the plots have just been added as extra skills and interests of the super/powered brothers.
31st December 2023
The Hardys head to the racetrack to take on a case their father is too busy for, and naturally bring Chet along for the ride.
This is noticeable for the danger in the story, which feels higher than in some, with a lot of ways that the characters could die or sustain serious injury.
However it does manage to provide more female characters than I’m used to from the series, featuring a bigger role for Callie, and a guest character who is a racing driver. Not up to modern levels or passing any sort of test, but a noticeable step forward.
The plot is solid if a bit convoluted, with a lot going on, and the technology feels a lot more modern.
31st December 2023
In book 111 the Hardy brothers and Chet are off to join the circus, Chet as his hobby of the week, and the Hardys to investigate a mystery.
It’s a good investigation with a range of characters, but as a mystery story I think fails a bit in that the clues aren’t solvable by the reader until exactly the same moment they are to the characters.
it’s a good character piece though, and plays up the differences between Frank and Joe that sometimes get overlooked, and makes good use of Chet to add to the plot and to add some comedy, without him being made fun of or letting the side down.
18th November 2023
In their 110th adventure the Hardy Boys head along to the local science fiction convention only to find that the main attraction has been stolen, and they need to investigate.
It feels kind of nice that the authors of the paste eighties and early nineties tried to adopt more of popular culture into the settings of these novels. This feels very relatable.
But the cast of guest characters still feels like a mass of tropes and some more diversity wouldn’t do any harm. There is one female character in the whole book, and while she has a position of authority on paper, she’s shown as fairly powerless in reality.
The mystery is okay as a plot, but not really one with many clues, it’s mostly about accidental coincidence leading to the reveal more than anything cleverer. So pretty average overall.
9th September 2023
Hardy Boys 109 sees the brothers back at the local TV studio as Frank takes part in a local inter-school quiz show. Until of course the host doesn’t show up, and the brothers enter detective mode.
It’s a nicely different pace, with some guest characters that shake things up, and although they are frustrating in places to read about, they do add a unique comedic edge to proceedings.
A good entry in the series for this era, which I found flowed quite smoothly.
5th August 2023
For their 108th mystery, the Hardy Boys find themselves working undercover at the local hot-rod show, as monster trucks fly around them.
As a mystery, it’s a good one with an interesting and dangerous setting, and a wide variety of characters to suspect and investigate. There’s a lot going on.
This one lacks all but one of the clichés of the series in this era, and that one that remains feels unfortunate because it just feels like picking on someone. I’m torn between whether a lack of recurring stuff makes this a better book, or is disappointing.
6th May 2023
The Hardys and Chet barely break a sweat when their friend/girlfriend/sister Iola is kidnapped in Florida. This is probably the most glaring plot hole in this novel, in which the only people to go looking for a missing teenager are three other teenagers, with all their parents just carrying on with their lives.
Beyond that, it’s the usual tale of near-misses, breaking and entering to look for clues, and eventually finding the coincidences that tie everything together. Pretty standard on that front from this era of Hardy Boys books.
Reasonably well paced though and with a good variety of characters and clues, and although Iola isn’t visible, she clearly has some level of agency throughout which is more than sometimes (although that hardly makes up for the incredibly low amount for any other female character).
