19th December 2020

The fourty-first Hardy Boys adventure once again sees them, with Chet in tow, off on holiday to help their father out with a case.

The plot seems relatively solid, though there's a large amount that is just the boys going along with events - they rarely seem to do any actual deduction, and rely on a lot of coincidence.

The usual racism typical of the time of writing makes a subtle appearance, as does one particularly blatant momet of sexism in the narrative. On the other hand though there is a healthy anti-ableism message in this entry in the series.

Overall a pretty standard entry in the series, though probably one of the more forgettable stories - I've certainly read it before and remembered exactly nothing.

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19th December 2020

The fortieth book in my epic re-read / completionist read-through of the original Hardy Boys series sees the two brothers and their ever-present friend Chet set off south on a mission to find two missing men.

This is one that I’ve read before, but other than knowing what the giant of the title was going to be, I have no really memories of the plot.

It’s a pretty standard story for the series. There’s a brief bit of racism but much less than in some of the earlier novels. Possibly a more noticeable lack of female characters.

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10th December 2014

Hardy Boys original number eleven (as revised in 1962) sees the teen detectives take on a new investigation when their father is unavailable. A range of coincidences come together as usual to tie several different mysteries together into a closed room mystery that the boys struggle to solve, including some of their biggest peril so far in the series.

While some elements of the series seem to be becoming quite repetitive - the number of criminal gangs in the same line of business in one little town is quite surprising - this is a good example of the Hardy Boys, and belies the claim the first ten books were the best, as this is certainly better than some of them.

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