April 2018 Update


Bayport Beat
Welcome to the April edition of The Hardy Boys News with new & upcoming releases and a look at “The Great Airport Mystery”.

New Releases
Clue Book #7Clue Books
7: The Pirate Ghost – 04/18
For Sale: PaperbackHardcover
Illustrated by Santy Gutierrez
Detective brothers Frank and Joe work to uncover a pirate ghost hoax in the seventh book in the interactive Hardy Boys Clue Book series.
The Hardy Boys are super excited when their friend Jason Wang wins the “Talk Like a Pirate Contest” at Bayport’s annual Pirate Palooza. Jason’s prize is a map to the legendary pirate, Captain Scurvydog’s buried treasure. Expert detectives Frank and Joe offer to help him find it.
But the next day, Jason tells the brothers that he won’t be doing any treasure hunting. He says the ghost of Captain Scurvydog has been haunting him; his parrot is singing pirate songs he’s never been taught, pirate coins appeared on his windowsill, and there’s a mysterious note in a bottle warning Jason to stay away from buried treasure. To Jason, the message is clear: stay away from Captain Scurvydog’s booty! Frank and Joe don’t believe in ghosts. They’re sure someone is tricking Jason so they can dig up the buried treasure themselves. The only question is, who?

 

Upcoming Releases

Hardy Boys Adventures #17

17: The Gray Hunter’s Revenge – 10/18
For Sale: Paperback – Hardcover
Frank and Joe investigate a supernatural crime in the seventeenth book in the thrilling Hardy Boys Adventures series.
One of the Hardys’ favorite writers, Nathan Foxwood, has recently died in a tragic car accident. Now, the press is swarming his house in Bayort to get the scoop on the novel he completed just before his untimely death.
When Joe hears that Nathan’s wife is having a giant estate sale, he drags Frank with him. Who could pass up the opportunity to see inside their favorite author’s home? Nathan’s wife says she wants to get away as quickly as possible; strange things have been happening since their first night there and now her husband is gone and she’s sure the house is haunted. But Nathan’s assistant, Adam, is not so willing to blame it all on the supernatural. Valuable things keep disappearing from the house-why would a ghost need money? Adam recognizes the Hardys’ from an article he read and asks for their help.
Of course Frank and Joe Hardy don’t believe in ghosts and are positive they can get to the bottom of all this. But when Adam is mysteriously hurt after spending the night alone in the house, the brothers start to wonder; what is the motive for these crimes if not ghostly revenge? Could these brother detectives be in over their heads?

 

Clue Book #88: The Time Warp Wonder – 11/18
For Sale: Paperback – Hardcover
Illustrated by Santy Gutierrez
Detective brothers Frank and Joe work to debunk a time travel machine in the eighth book in the interactive Hardy Boys Clue Book series.
Bayport Elementary is almost ready for the annual science fair-it’s all down to the final touches. Frank and Joe have collaborated on a detective helmet. It’s the perfect lie detector-just place it on a suspect’s head and the bells and whistles will tell you when they’re lying.
But not everyone is as prepared for the big fair. Their good friend Phil has designed a time machine he calls the Time Warp Wonder. He just needs to figure out how it works first.
Phil uses Chet’s hamster as a test subject. And the machine really does make the hamster disappear from the cafeteria! It’s just that Phil isn’t sure where the hamster went or how to get him back. Frank and Joe are not so sure the hamster went back in time. They have a feeling their Clue Book will be more help to Chet’s hamster than Phil’s calculations.
But the brothers start questioning their instincts when they receive pictures of the hamster in different time periods; dressed as caveman with the dinosaurs, suited up in armor in the middle ages, in a top hat watching Abe Lincoln give a speech. Could Chet’s hamster really be traveling though time? It’s up to the Hardy Boys-and you-to find out!

 

Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The New Case Files – December 2018 – For Sale
by Stefan Petrucha (Author), Sarah Kinney (Author), Gerry Conway (Author), Sho Murase (Illustrator), Paulo Henrique (Illustrator)
Some of literature’s most famous detectives team-up in a feature length story! Plus zombies, vampires, this one’s got everything! Five thrilling graphic novels are collected here featuring world famous teen sleuths Nancy Drew and Frank and Joe Hardy. First, see them like you’ve never seen them before-teaming up! Plus, Nancy Drew is off slaying vampires and the Hardy Boys call it quits…after crawling with zombies.

 

 

This Month: The Great Airport Mystery

Hardy Boys Cover Art Hardy Boys Cover Art Hardy Boys Cover Art

09: The Great Airport Mystery – Collectible Editions For Sale
Cover Art & Edition Information
Original: 1930 Leslie McFarlane (210 pages) – For Sale
Outline: Edward Stratemeyer
Revised: 1965 Tom Mulvey (175 pages) – For Sale
Outline: Harriet Adams
Revision: Completely Different
Art: 1930 W.S. Rogers
Art: 1944 Stricker
Art: 1959 Rudy Nappi (frontispiece: Stricker)
Notes: In 1940 the text on page 209 was altered to include the title of the next book.
Jim Lawrence wrote the precis and Harriet S. Adams wrote the outline for the revised story.
The Hardy Boys thwart a mail robbery attempt by their enemy, drunken mail pilot Giles Ducroy.
Revised: The Boys solve the theft of valuable electronics parts containing platinum.

Description of current edition: Valuable electronic parts containing platinum are being stolen from shipments made by Stanwide Mining Equipment’s cargo planes, and Frank and Joe are called upon to assist their world-renowned detective father solve the baffling case. While posing as Stanwide employees, the boys look into the truth behind the chief pilot’s death at sea. The puzzling trail of clues leads the young sleuths to an uninhabited Caribbean island, but the final, and most startling, discovery is made in the boys’ home town of Bayport.

 

Review: The Great Airport Mystery
#9 in the series – 1930
Written by Leslie McFarlane
Reviewed by Robert Finnan – That’s me! 🙂
The Plot: Bayport’s got a nifty new airport on the outskirts of town and Frank and Joe decide to pay a visit. Longtime Hardy fans know well that no trip undertaken in the first chapter goes smoothly and, sure enough, when nearing the airport they narrowly avoid getting hit by a crashing plane! They go to rescue the pilot, Giles Ducroy, who is drunk and blames them for the crash! However, a friendly farmer has seen the whole thing and backs up the Boys.
Ducroy makes more threats and the Boys go home and tell their father what happened. Fenton promises to square it with his contacts but the Boys worry about this and their upcoming final exams. Later the Boys and Chet run into Ducroy while in town and Ducroy starts a fight but gets beaten up by Frank.
Having passed their finals, the Boys and their chums have a picnic down by Barmet Bay. Spotting Ducroy and his cronies, Ollie Jacobs and Newt Pipps, in an abandoned cabin near the picnic ground, the Boys investigate and overhear them making plans for a robbery. It starts to rain (of course!), so the Boys and their friends have to head home.
After the Boys graduate from High School, Fenton tells them he’s investigating a mail robbery and asks them to help him. They go back to the cabin and find a few clues. Then they head out to Cabin Island with Chet and Biff. Of course, another storm blows up and the boys are forced to make a harrowing run to the store of their old pal, Amos Grice, where they spend the night.
Calling home in the morning, they find out there’s been another robbery at the airport and when they get home, they get arrested for it! Chief Collig seems eager to convict the Boys and shows them all the circumstantial evidence against them. They finally wind up in jail until they get bailed out by Hurd Applegate and Elroy Jefferson.
Due to the Boys arrest, Fenton is taken off the robbery case. The Boys go off to investigate the Ducroy gang, who have blown town. Through some decent detecting, they get on the trail of Ollie Jacobs and finally find the rest of the gang.
The gang has bought an airplane and is planning a major robbery. The Boys decide to stow away in the luggage compartment of the plane and spend the next couple of chapters flying around during the days and spending their nights at farmhouses.
Finally the day of the robbery comes and the Boys awake only to spot the plane flying away! They are about to give up but spot Jacobs and Pipps in town and hurry back to the farmhouse. As evening falls, the Boys once again stow away and the gang is off on their nefarious task. They force a mail plane down in a field and proceed to rob the pilot at gunpoint. Frank and Joe, who somehow now have pistols of their own, capture the gang one at a time.
The Boys and the airmail pilot head back to Bayport in the gangs plane. They have been cleared of all charges and are now the toast of the town. Fenton is back on the airmail case (gee, thought he solved that one!) and even Chief Collig says he never really suspected the Boys!

Comments: This isn’t among the best stories written by McFarlane although there still is plenty to like – particularly his sidelights of the Boys with their chums and the interweaving of characters from previous stories. The climax, however, leaves a lot to be desired. Compare the long thrilling shoot-out in The House On The Cliff to the brief, almost perfunctory capture described here to see what I mean. And just where did Frank and Joe come up with those pistols anyway? And what about that package of Red Ribbon cigarettes Frank found? Nothing ever came of that either!
It’s always bugged me that Frank stupidly tries to outrace the crashing plane in the first chapter. All he had to do was stop the car and Ducroy’s plane would have sailed right past them.
The Syndicate missed a golden opportunity to do a cross-over from the Ted Scott series here – what better story to have Ted make a cameo appearance?
Other commentators have pointed out the logical flow of time in the early Hardy Boys stories. Well, it ends here! Much is made of the Boys graduation from High School, however future stories have them back in good old Bayport High, where they remain to this day – almost 70 years later!

Rating: B
This review originally appeared in The Bayport Times #20
 

Original Outline for “The Great Airport Mystery”





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