The Ghost Ship Is Coming To Get You! (The Hardy Boys: Phantom Freighter - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: Phantom Freighter - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	01/07/09 (37 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Might learn a bit about fly fishing, otherwise a reasonably solid story

Disadvantages: A little dated in parts

Frank & Joe Hardy are the teenage sons of famous private detective Fenton Hardy & his wife Laura. Together, (& sometimes from help with family & friends) they investigate all sorts of crimes & strange occurences....

The Phantom Freighter was published in the US in 1947 & was the twenty sixth in the series. It was revised in 1970. The book first appeared in the UK in 1977 & was numbered 39 when it was published by Armada. This book was actually written by Amy McFarlane, wife of Leslie who had ghost written many of the earlier entries under the Franklin W. Dixon pseudonym.

The Phantom Freighter opens with Frank & Joe receiving a letter from a Thaddeus McClintock asking them to come and see him as he has an interesting job for them. Meanwhile Aunt Gertrude has discovered that the carton that's been delivered for her is actually addressed to a James Johnson. She believes that there's been some sort of mix-up & that Mr. Johnson will have her carton which contains family items & a number of her own personal documents. The boys make their way to the address on the Johnson carton only to discover that a similar looking carton is on fire inside the Johnson barn. Are Aunt Gertrude's precious family documents lost forever?

It transpires that the address listed on the carton Frank & Joe have is a genuine address but that the family who live their are called Phillips, not Johnson. Frank & Jon soon discover that there's a gang at work, having cartons delivered to address whose owners are out of town. Could this be mixed up with the smuggling & forgery cases that their father is working on?
In addition to their "sleuthing" Thaddeus McClintock wants to take a trip & wants Frank & Joe to organise. After ruling out a number of suggestions he finally agrees that a trip on a freighter might be just what he's looking for.

Unfortunately all the spaces on freighters docking at Bayport seem to be filled, at least according to booking agent Mr. Klack & his surly employee. Frank & Joe grow suspicious and soon discover that investigating freighters at the docks is not the safest place to be.
Then they hear all about "The Phantom Freighter". Could such a thing exist? Or will it, as their previous cases have often highlighted, prove to be a clever hoax? When the fastest freighter around fails to keep up with The Phantom Freighter Frank & Joe start to wonder what's really going on......


The usual supporting characters who appear in this book are:-

+ Fenton Hardy
+ Laura Hardy
+ Aunt Gertrude
+ Chet Morton
+ Biff Hooper
+ Tony Prito
+ Callie Shaw
+ Iola Morton
+ Chief Ezra Collig

This was another book I really couldn't remember anything about, despite having read it a number of times when I was a child. It's a fairly average, run of the mill book, neither dull nor particularly interesting. Poor Joe gets knocked out twice this time around: his skull must be made of granite. Once more, Aunt Gertrude gets a little more to do than she did in some of the earlier stories, which is good &, on a positive note, the gang gets rounded up in stages rather than being captured all at once in the last four or five pages as happens with some of the other stories. Still, I don't suppose kids are particularly bothered about whether or not the culprits always get caught just before the end of the story, are they?
Chet's hobby is this book is fly fishing so the story contains a bit of information about that.
Overall, this should keep your child occupied for a couple of hours or so but it's not in the "I Can't Put It Down" range of books.

At the time of writing the book is available in hardcover for £7.19 from Amazon Prime. New & used paperback versions can be otained from 1p upwards.

Summary: Twenty sixth in the series