Bayport Beat
Welcome to the November edition of The Hardy Boys News with a look at new & upcoming releases and “A Figure In Hiding”.
Coming Soon
17: The Gray Hunter’s Revenge – 12/18
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?
18: The Disappearance – 02/19
{“The Vanishing Room” has been renamed “The Disappearance” and given a new plot.}
For Sale: Paperback – Hardcover
The Hardy brothers and Frank’s new girlfriend, Jones, are attending a local comic book convention on the shore. They meet up with Jones’s friend Harper, a fellow comics super fan, on the boardwalk outside the convention. The four of them spend hours running from booth to booth and end the perfect day with pizza at Harper’s short-term rental apartment.
Things don’t stay so perfect, though. On the way home, Jones realizes she switched phones with Harper by accident and she is getting some really scary texts. When they show up at the apartment the next day, they find it totally destroyed and Harper is missing. Frank and Joe start digging into their new friend’s life, hoping to find out where she might have gone, but the more they find out about her, the more mysterious she becomes. Can Frank and Joe find this secretive character? Or has she disappeared forever?
8: The Time Warp Wonder – 12/18
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!
9: Who Let The Frogs Out? – 04/19
For Sale: Paperback – Hardcover
Illustrated by Santy Gutierrez
Detective brothers Frank and Joe must solve a muddy mystery in the ninth book in the interactive Hardy Boys Clue Book series.
Bayport Elementary is hosting a Mud Run to celebrate spring! A particularly muddy part of the town’s park will be set aside for the race and Coach Lambert has even managed to make more mud by using the park’s hoses and shovels. Frank and Joe can’t wait to splash through the muck.
But on the day of the race, the runners are stopped in their tracks by croaking, blurping bullfrogs! Lots of people in the town had been annoyed that the park was being taken over by a bunch of muddy kids. Could someone have sabotaged the race with buckets of frogs?
This Month: A Figure In Hiding
16: A Figure In Hiding – Collectible Editions For Sale
Cover Art & Edition Information
Original: 1937 Leslie McFarlane (212 pages) – For Sale
Outline: Edna Squier (nee Stratemeyer)
Revised: 1965 James Lawrence (176 pages) – For Sale
Outline: James Lawrence
Revision: Completely Different
Art: 1937 Paul Laune
Art: 1962 John Leone
Notes: In 1941 the text on page 211 was altered to include the title of the next book.
The Hardy Boys foil the fake eye surgery “Eye Syndicate” of quack Dr. Grafton.
Revision: The Hardy Boys smash the “Evil Eye” (aka “The Goggler Gang”) theft ring.
Description of current edition: A blind peddler’s warning and a weird glass eye plunge Frank and Joe Hardy into one of the most baffling cases they have ever tackled. The young detectives’ investigation takes them to a walled estate guarded by savage dogs, where a wealthy businessman is hiding out in fear for his life. In a climax that will hold the reader spellbound with suspense, Frank and Joe find themselves trapped in a sinister house of mystery where there seems to be no escape!
Hardys In Review
This Month: A Figure In Hiding
# 16 in the series, published in 1937, text by Leslie McFarlane
The Plot: The Boys and Chet go to the movies and the theater is robbed. They pursue the crook but lose him. They run into Mr. Hardy, who is tailing two members of quack Dr. Grafton’s “Eye Syndicate”. Spying on the crooks from adjoining hotel rooms, they overhear a contretemps between one of the baddies and his adopted daughter, Virginia Sinder. She flees the hotel and is pursued by Frank and Joe, who, after discovering the unconscious theater robber on the way, save her when she drives her car into the river. The cops show up and Ginnie takes a powder, leaving Frank and Joe to go back to town in the thief’s car. Chet is questioned at police HQ for his alleged involvement in the theater stick up and then is mysteriously dispatched to Boston by a phony note purporting to come from the Boys. Things really get cooking when Mr. Hardy enlists the aid of one of Grafton’s intended victims to bait a trap for the quack. Grafton manages to get away by gassing the Boys but not before they realize that Grafton is actually the long-lost neer-do-well son of the intended victim! After trailing Grafton’s henchmen, the Boys encounter Virginia hiding out on a farm. At the same time the two henchmen come looking for her and she escapes, only to seek shelter at Grafton’s country hide out. She’s held prisoner so Frank, Joe and Chet help her escape. Once again, she runs away from the Boys and they are re-captured and almost buried alive! They manage to escape, Fenton arrives with the cops, Grafton’s syndicate is smashed and Virginia is reunited with her real family.
Comments: Really good story! Another winner by Leslie McFarlane! The action never lets up from beginning to end. The sub-plots tie together nicely (except for Chet being sent to Boston, which is never adequately explained) and nobody does anything particularly stupid (except the inexplicable behavior of Virginia Sinder and her grandmother which borders on idiocy, proving the old adage of the apple not falling far from the tree!) The Boys show plenty of guts, quick thinking and some decent detecting. Grafton is one of the meanest, slimiest villains ever! Aunt Gertrude is annoying, ill-mannered and ill-tempered as usual. Definitely in the top 10 of all the stories in the original canon.
Rating: Original: A- (Would get an A except Fenton acts like kind of a jerk at times!)
This review originally appeared in The Bayport Times #4
Original Outline for “A Figure In Hiding”
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