Tag Archives: Rudi Nappi

15: THE SINISTER SIGNPOST

15

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1936

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1968 by Tom Mulvey, one of five he revised and the first since The Mark On The Door.

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red and yellow but this time Frank is wearing blue.  What a great cover this is!  Frank and Joe are dodging a classic looking sports car that is falling apart because of the sinister signpost.  Great action depiction that is like a Hollywood movie poster in that it shows something that is thematically correct while at the same time showing a scene that never occurs in the story.

Setting: Bayport and Maryland for a little horse farm subplot and Vermont for a brief side story, but mostly the region around Bayport.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: By the phone.  Seriously.  At every turn of the story, Fenton suggests Frank and Joe go out into action while he waits by the phone in case the police call or the crooks call or his bookie calls — OK, not that last one.  Mr. Deus Ex Fenton doesn’t even fulfill that role.  Instead he gets his sorry butt captured and it’s up to Joe to be heroic and save the day, with a big assist from Chet.

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet a lot, and Biff and Tony for a brief scene.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Bicycle with rockets.  Yes, you read that right.  No, I’m not kidding.  Yes, of course it comes into the story.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: Coconut-custard pie, and later on an apple pie.

Plot: A factory making experimental motors (and man, does Bayport have a lot of experimental, top-secret factories around town) is the victim of information being leaked somehow.  Plus race cars get their windshields clouded by some sort of device installed in street signs.  And Aunt Gertrude inherits a horse farm in Maryland that is not as irrelevant to the plot as you might think.

Review:  I like this one.  From its top-notch (pun intended, if you’ve read the book) cover, to its Bayport setting, and lots of flights by Jack Wayne who never seems to mind being asked to do anything, this one has a lot going for it.  A good mystery that needs to be solved, subplots that tie into the main plot, twins, car racing, it’s fun.

Score: 8

14: THE HIDDEN HARBOR MYSTERY

14

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1935

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1961 by James Buechler, one of three he did and the first since While the Clock Ticked.

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red and yellow in a sea of blue and green and alligators, oh my!  Looks like a hurricane in the background too.  No easy swim for these lads.

Setting: Bayport and Georgia.  Mostly Georgia.  This is Frank and Joe go south.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: Jamaica.  With the missus.  Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Deux Ex Fenton shows up in Chapter XX as usual and saves the day.  Poor Mrs. Hardy never does get a normal vacation.

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, the honorary Hardy Boy by this point.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Ain’t got none.  Again.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: She’s not in the picture here as the boys spend almost the entire time in Georgia.  Missed her chance for a nice pecan pie!

Plot: A newspaper editor from Georgia is sued for libel and seeks the Hardy’s help.  Down to Georgia they go where they find a feud between two branches of a family that live on a pond that might be more than a pond, he said, but not in any innuendo type of sense, but in a Hardy Boys a-mystery-that-lasts-hundreds-of-years-will-be-cleared-up-by-us-in-a-week sense.

Review:  Doesn’t have quite the gripping end of While the Clock Ticked, and in the end these bad guys sing like canaries in a particularly good mood.  It’s mostly one of those why-is-everybody-trying-to-scare-us-off type of stories, with hidden treasure, old southern feuds, and no doubt grits.

Score: 6

13: THE MARK ON THE DOOR

13

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1934

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1967 by Tom Mulvey, one of five he did and the first since What Happened at Midnight and The Great Airport Mystery.

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red as always but the yellow is the sky and house.  Frank and Joe are not hidden and watching something, they are confronting a guy waving a machete!  Uh oh, are we in for more Latino stereotypes?  Nope, Mr. Mulvey resists that temptation for the most part.  The Mexico people are nuanced here.  At least we see that mark on the door.

Setting: Bayport and Mexico.  Mostly Mexico.  This is Frank and Joe south of the border.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: Oh he’s around for the beginning as it’s his idea for the boys to join him in Mexico — and he even suggests Chet come along too for no obvious reason whatsoever.   Then he dutifully disappears for the bulk of the book, only to show up WITH AN ARMY at the end, as usual.  I mean, we got helicopters and everything at the end.  This is a James Bond ending.

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, the third musketeer.  Jack Wayne shows up prominently again, not only to get them to Mexico and back, but also some nifty flying in country.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Ain’t got none.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: She made an apple pie.  She’s warming up in this series.

Plot: A sub is spotted near Bayport (because of course it is), and a connection is made to Mexico.  Off they fly and a search gets underway, but nobody wants to talk because of the mark on the door.

Review:  Not a big fan.  It’s Frank and Joe touring the Mexican countryside trying to solve a mystery nobody will talk about.  What on earth is so vital that lives are at stake?  When we finally find out what the plot is, we can’t believe so much effort went into so little.  Seriously?  The bad guy threaten people’s lives over this?!  He goes through that much effort for yet another scam when there are plenty of jewels in Bayport to rob like every other crook?  There have to be easier ways to make a living!  That said, there is one absolutely terrific sequence where the boys are trapped on board the submarine and they have to escape.  How they do it, and the bravery and leadership Joe shows in the process, are top notch.  It’s Joe as James Bond, and I ain’t kidding.  Hey, Mr. Mulvey rewrote this in 1967, and that was near peak publicity for James Bond.  He got ideas . . .

Score: 5

12: FOOTPRINTS UNDER THE WINDOW

12

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1933

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1965 by David Grambs, one of four he did and the first since The Shore Road Mystery

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red and yellow as is typical.  Plus green foliage and tan roof.  Frank and Joe and Chet face down a gang of desperadoes who don’t need no steekin’ badges!  Oh sorry, so many South American cliches in this book I got carried away.

Setting: Bayport and an island off the coast of South America

Where’s Fenton This Time?: Gone until the very end, at which point he performs his usual job and SAVES HIS SON’S LIVES.  Again.  

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Tony, Iola and Callie.  But other than Iola getting a bag of hers stolen, not much goes on with the others except for Chet who might as well be the honorary third Hardy boy in this book he does so much.  And Jack Wayne shows up prominently to fly them back and forth to South America.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Weather forecasting.  What?  It’s a hobby!

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: No sweets described, just some delicious meals the reader cannot share because they aren’t described.  Bad David Grambs!

Plot: Top-secret microfilm is at risk, and tourists from South America are having their bags stolen, and a laundry gets into the plot, and footsteps are seen under some windows, and Fenton is off doing who knows what.  And tell me this isn’t EXACTLY a line from Scooby Doo: “You catch on fast,” [SPOILER] said mockingly.  “The warning sign I put up here and the ghost legend helped keep people away — But not you nosy kids.”  Heh, you can’t tell me the Scooby Doo writers weren’t Hardy Boy fans when they were young!

Review:  Just OK.  Lots of investigating which gets interrupted by a trip to South America where they encounter a dictator’s gang (so 1960s!), fly back, get locked in a  tomb (!) and have a race to the finish when things look bad.  But the Coast Guard is made to look like an unstoppable force when they show up.

Score: 6

11: WHILE THE CLOCK TICKED

11

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1932

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1962 by James Beuchler

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red and yellow as is typical.  What is not typical is this cover is a massive spoiler!  One of the two key mysteries of this book is solved for you right on the cover.  Oh, Mr. Nappi, it’s a good thing you didn’t paint this cover in the 21st-century — Twitter would have been all over you for doing this.  But back to the cover, it’s a solid entry.  The boys are not just staring at trouble as usual, this time they are in the middle of trouble, and oh what trouble it is (see below)!

Setting: Bayport.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: He and the missus are off somewhere and don’t show up at all.  The one time we really need Fenton to ride to the rescue, he’s AWOL.  Fenton, you had one job…

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Biff, Jerry, Tony, Iola and Callie.  Chet gets the big role.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Doing criminal voices again, I guess.  He hasn’t had any hobbies for a couple of books now.  Maybe Iola teased him too much.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: A whole fudge pie, and then later some apple pie, and a big feast at the end.  If you don’t get hungry reading Hardy Boys books, you’re doing it wrong.

Plot: More jewel thieves in town (it’s a wonder any woman in Bayport has so much as an earring left).  Hurd Applegate shows up again (see The Tower Treasure), and again, his jade gets stolen.  It’s called a safe, Hurd, look into it.  Meanwhile an abandoned house is purchased and the new owner hires Frank and Joe to solve the mystery of how someone is able to leave threatening notes in the middle of a completely sealed room.

Review: The ending of this one makes your hair stand on end.  It’s an are-you-kidding-me moment where you cannot believe what you just read.  Usually the boys get beat up, or threatened to get dumped in the ocean or something.  But look at that cover.  This is at the end when the boys are tied up and a bomb is set to go off and kill them.  Obliterate them!  And there is NOTHING they can do about it.  They cannot get untied, they cannot reach the bomb, they know it will go off at 3am and all they can do is watch that clock tick to their doom.  Blow up the Hardy Boys?  Was Mr. McFarlane so sick of writing these books that he indulged in a little fantasy here?  You read this ending and you are shocked at the potential violence here.  And the bad guy is really, really spiteful!  No confession at the end for this jerk.  Even after he’s caught, good luck finding the stolen jewels.  Phew!  This one’s intense.

Score: 8

10: WHAT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT

10

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1931

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1967 by Tom Mulvey

Cover: Rudy Nappi, blue, yellow, nighttime in the park in the rain.  This is one of my favorite covers. Frank and Joe look serious and grown up, the rain effect is beautifully done with the lights burning yellow in the background as the clock is about to strike midnight, and there is Anchor Pete just like in the book. Wonderful cover.  Simply magnificent work by Mr. Nappi.

Setting: Bayport.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: California, working on a case that, natch, ties into the boys’ case.  Chapter XX cavalry!

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Biff, Jerry, Iola and Callie.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Nothing.  He does speak well of his jalopy when it gets insulted, so I suppose he was spending his time on Queenie.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: Some undescribed cake.  Harrumph.  At least give us some details of the food, please.

Plot: Robberies that vary in location from time to time to stay one step ahead of the law, and this time it’s in Bayport, that notorious nexus of nefariousness.  Frank and Joe are asked to grab a nifty spy radio some scientist had invented, but the radio is a Hitchcock MacGuffin.  The real story is the gang of thieves who decide to get rid of the Hardy Boys since they are getting in the way.  There’s kidnapping, plane crashes, a guy who uses an anchor as a weapon (did you not see the cover?  That’s chapter 19 right there!), stolen cars, the works.  Yet it’s all Bayport.

Review: This is a good one.  It’s a tightly contained story without any traveling or odd side plots or Chet hobbies and the like.  Crooks versus Hardy Boys, with the motif of the clock striking midnight repeated throughout the book.  This is a simple mystery well told.

Score: 9 (8 for the pretty good story, extra point for the terrific cover)

9: THE GREAT AIRPORT MYSTERY

9Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1930

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1965 by Tom Mulvey

Cover: Rudy Nappi, just a bit of red and yellow, but more brown and blue this time.  A daytime scene right out of the book.  This time instead of them staring at a bad guy from a distance, they are in full investigative mode.  Good cover.

Setting: Bayport, plus briefly the Caribbean and Montana.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: Oh, busy doing his own investigating, but he’s now mostly out of the picture.  No cavalry needed here.

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Biff, Iola and Callie.  Mostly Chet.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Speaking like a dead man.  You had to be there.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: Both strawberry short cake as well as gingerbread with apple sauce and whipped cream.  Frank and Joe are full.  Chet could use a little more.

Plot: Someone is stealing platinum parts from an air shipping company.  Frank and Joe become employees to investigate.  A dead man keeps speaking (but remember the Scooby Doo rule!).

Review: Not bad at all.  The boys get to do a lot of flying, something that becomes a key part of their investigative tool box for most of the series.  I think the 1950s and 1960s loved the idea of freedom through the air because the Hardy Boys sure do love them some flying.

This book has a good mystery, gang members who throw grenades, a presumed dead pilot who keeps haunting the living pilot who took his job, a tornado, a severe storm on an island, Chet being humorous in a way that ties right into the plot, and chattering bad guys in the end as we wrap it up.

And now we are done with the single-digit books, and it’s time to move into the Hardy Boys classic period with some very interesting books coming up.

Score: 7

8: THE MYSTERY OF CABIN ISLAND

8

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1929

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1966 by Anne Shultes

Cover: Rudy Nappi, red as always, but no yellow, just brown and lots of snow.  Appropriate for the subject.  As always the boys are watching something, this time someone is peering into the cabin.  The whole book someone is constantly peering into this cabin.  An OK cover.

Setting: Bayport and nearby Cabin Island.  Did you not notice the title?

Where’s Fenton This Time?: He’s around but busy doing his thing, so as usual it’s up to the boys.  No Fenton as cavalry this time in the end.

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Tony, Biff.  Mostly Chet and Biff who camp out on the island with Frank and Joe.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Oh, he’s got some camera that they use.  Not much on the hobby aspect this time.

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: Ain’t got no pie for you (or Frank and Joe, who are getting quite irritable about it).

Plot: The elderly owner of Cabin Island wants to reward Frank and Joe for rescuing his car from a car thief gang (hints of Shore Road Mystery?), so he invites them to spend winter break on his island.  But lots of people seem to be interested in this island.

Review: Good mystery about what happened to Mr. Jefferson’s grandson who has gone missing, and some code breaking.  Not much threat of violence in this one as there are no gangs with guns, merely folks searching for a treasure on the island, and some local teens who are up to mischief.  So unlike most of the books, no vast criminal rings are being rounded up in Bayport.  Maybe the crooks took Christmas off.  This is a more peaceful Hardy Boys book as a result.  And yes, like Scooby Doo, they never miss a chance to hint at something supernatural that turns out to be anything but.  Hint: it ain’t a real ghost.

Score: 7

7: THE SECRET OF THE CAVES

7

Who Wrote It?: Franklin W. Dixon

C’mon, Who Really Wrote it?: Leslie McFarlane in 1929

Was It Revised?: Yes, in 1964 by Andrew E. Svenson

Cover: Rudy Nappi, yellow and red yet again, but this time green is prominent and the background is daytime with the beach.  As always the boys are watching something, this time the hermit by the caves.  Not bad.

Setting: In Bayport some of the time, but south along the Atlantic coast for the cave story, and north for a brief time at a university.

Where’s Fenton This Time?: He sticks around Bayport while the boys travel.  Fenton is supposed to protect a transmitting tower above Bayport.  Fenton, you had one job!

Which Chums Show Up?: Chet, Tony, Biff, Iola, Callie.  For once Iola and Callie get to do some detective work!  But they don’t get to do much, and frankly are stereotypically female in the writing, unfortunately.  They deserve better.

What’s Chet’s Hobby This Time?: Metal detecting.  Boy does it come in handy!

Aunt Gertrude’s Dessert: No pie for you!  Gertrude merely shows up toward the end for a spinning wheel minor subplot.

Plot: A young woman wants to find her brother who has disappeared from university.  Investigating this, the boys stumble onto a smuggling operation.

Review: I dunno, this one seems odd to me even though it’s like all the others in several ways.  Frank and Joe investigate something, someone tries to hurt them, they investigate, they get attacked, they reach the end of the story and do something heroically suicidal in order to figure out the mystery, they get captured, heeeeeeer’s Fenton, the end.  Just didn’t flow.  Mr. Svenson only rewrote this one and the Melted Coins, so maybe I’m just noticing the different tone of the writing.

Score: 5