Kidnapped! (The Hardy Boys: The Billion Dollar Ransom - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: The Billion Dollar Ransom - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	21/08/09 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite exciting. The magicians tournament holds the interest

Disadvantages: Unrealistic plot thread involving the President

The Hardy Boys are the teenage sons of famous private detective Fenton Hardy. Together they investigate all sorts of crimes, often assisted by one or more of their circle of friends.

The Billion Dollar Ransom, published in the US in 1982, was the seventy second book in the Hardy Boys series. First appearing in the UK in 1983, it was numbered 70 when it was published by Armada.


This book opens with Mr. Heifitz telling the Hardys that he's hosting a tournament of magicians at his theatre. The event, staged over four days, will see half of the magicians eliminated after each round until a winner is declared. Mr. Heifitz is worried, not only because of the ego's of some of the magicians taking part, but because their was a fire at the theater which was originally scheduled to host the tournament. Mr Hardy agrees to take on the assignment but then receives a mysterious phonecall which sees him called to Andrews Air Force Base.

The boys check out the Palace Theater, witnessing an altercation between two magicians. One of them, Zandro The Great accuses the other, Manuel The Magnificent of pulling a knife on him. This is just the first in a series of altercations between the two men which is to culminate in Zandro accusing Manuel of attempting to kill him with a sandbag.

Meanwhile, Tony Prito's father is renovating the opera house. The project seems jinxed as work is wrecked. Then Tony has an accident, putting himself in hospital. Later, Frank finds himself trapped inside the opera house along with local acting nut Jonathan Ridoux. It would appear that something or someone really doesn't want work progressing on the site so, in the interests of safety, it's locked up for a while.

The Hardy household also has a couple of guests who, ultimately, are revealed to be working for the government. We finally discover that they're in Bayport to make arrangements for the President to come to the airforce base where he'll have a tumour operated on. But the operation doesn't go quite according to plan.......



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

+ Fenton Hardy
+ Laura Hardy
+ Aunt Gertrude
+ Chet Morton
+ Iola Morton
+ Jack Wayne
+ Chief Ezra Collig


This is perhaps the most far fetched book so far in the entire Hardy Boys series. The magician's tournament is reasonably well handled but the book takes a wrong turn when the plot involving the President's operation begins to unfold. Not only is the reader expected to accept that the president can be snatched with relative ease for under the noses of various government employees, but also that the kidnappers can be foiled by a couple of teenage boys. It's all a little too ridiculous for words. However, that's my looking at the story through adult eyes. I'm sure that I wasn't quite so critical of it when I was in the age range that the books are trageted at.

Having said that, I think I read the book at least 2 or 3 times so it was perhaps the level of excitement that caused me to re-read it rather than any semblance of reality.

Aside from that the book's is reasonably well written, although I found that it was rather easy to work out who the 'baddies' are. Part of that might be down to the fact that there aren't really that many "guest characters" to pick from when you're trying to work out who might be cooking up some dastardly deeds.

All in all it's mainly an average book which is rather let down by the unrealistic "President" plot thread. If the latter part of the book had used something a little more realistic then I think I'd have enjoyed it a whole lot more.


At the time of writing new / used paperbacks are available from 1p upwards at

Summary: Seventy Second Hardy Boys Book