24th December 2020

The forty-fourth Hardy Boys story is again one that I read as a child but have no memory of. This time the boys, along with their ever-present friend Chet, go to visit Chet’s uncle at an art school on the trail of treasure.

Plot wise it’s quite good - there’s a lot going on and a lot feels like the detectives are doing some detecting for once. But they still don’t seem to properly do mystery solving, it feels very much like at this point in the 1960s they just bumble through and conveniently stumble upon exactly what they are after.

The dated nature of the stories - again the female characters are limited to flirting and crying - is made even more notable by a couple of weird moments of Confederate glorification, which I’m sure wouldn’t be left unaddressed in a work written today.

So mixed feelings about this one.

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27th October 2019

Book 24 and I’m well into the run of the original Hardy Boys novels. I remember this one quite a lot from reading it as a child - or at least the opening chapters.

It’s a good mystery, involving a lot of clues that gradually unwind themselves. But it does almost feel like a marketing tool for radio sets - the Hardys have bought them for their home, car and boat, and use them all the time in this story - although despite that the connection to the plot only becomes clear very late on. I wondered a bit if this is a product of the 1960s/70s rewrite that changed things up a lot in some of the books.

So while the story has dated from the use of technology which no longer is used, the tale remains good - including a bunch of supporting characters who help to flesh things out, and the ever present new hobby for achey Morton. The narrative over uses the word ‘cinch’, which doesn’t feel like a word anyone uses in real life any more, and I wondered if new audiences would enjoy it less than I did.

Finally there almost seem to be hints of subtle feminism making their way into the plot, with Aunt Gertrude seemingly making a bit more of herself than she might first appear.

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21st December 2014

Hardy Boys book twelve, as updated in 1965, sees the sibling detective teenagers rescue a man who has fallen overboard, and who gives them a cryptic warning about footprints before disappearing. It's a good adventure story that includes some international travel.

Parts of the story feel dated, and to an adult reader a little bit odd - as in one of the earlier stories, references to unfriendly countries are vague and don't feel a natural part of the narrative. On the other hand, they added a little grandeur to the story that some of the earlier books were lacking with an over reliance on a particular type of criminal.

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1st November 2014

The sixth book in the Hardy Boys series, in my case the revised edition from 1964, sees the Hardys investigating a spate of car thefts from along the Shore Road in their hometown. It's the first time I've felt that the pair have really tackled a crime in a methodical manner suited to real detectives.

The plot moves at a good pace, carries humorous moments successfully, and as a mystery works really well. Probably one of the best stories up to this point in the series.

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