Shadow Of Doom..... (The Hardy Boys: The Blackwing Puzzle - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: The Blackwing Puzzle - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	03/09/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonably paced, interesting plot thread with the Blackwing Ghost

Disadvantages: A little dated

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

The Blackwing Puzzle was published in the US in 1984 & was the eighty second in the series. The book first appeared in the UK in 1986 and was numbered 80 when it was published by Armada.

This particular story opens with Jeff Allen and his wife Mary calling in Frank and Joe to investigate some spooky goings on at their home - the Blackwing Mansion. The mansion was originally part of the network which helped runaway slaves but, when the original owners had exhausted their fortune it was snapped up by Captain Blackwing, a former "blackbirder" or slave trader.

The Allens claim that they've heard his voice in the house and that and that they've seen a weird creature not only flying, but hovvering over the house. Jeff Allen tells them that the creature is at least twelve to fifteen feet in width and that he trained as a surveyor before he became an architect so his judgement in this area is better than most people's. They also receive a letter from a psychic, Madame Xavia, urging them to move out of the house. Frank and Joe are stumped. Their initial thoughts are that it may be some sort of ultralight aircraft but they then rule this out as unlikely due to the fact that the strange creature makes no noise at all.

Meanwhile, Fenton Hardy is working on a case of his own. Over the past year there are been a number of thefts from hi-tech industrial plants in which the thief or thieves have been able to evade guard dogs, security fences etc. Many of the stolen items seem to have been sold abroad. The FBI have two suspects in the shape of Klaus Kane and sidekick safecracker Ranse Hobb. Could the two cases be linked?

Chet also throws a case in Frank and Joe's direction as he tells them about the theft of a butterfly from a collector named Drexel. There's a $5000 reward for anyone that can find it and return it to him.

As Frank and Joe dig deeper into the three mysteries it's obvious someone's very nervous. Their boathouse is booby-trapped with a Molotov Cocktail, their ultralite aircraft is sabotaged and, when it looks as if they've solved the mystery they find themselves on the wrong end of a flame thrower........


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


It's nice to have Frank and Joe back in their home town of Bayport after the previous few books had them gallivanting around Florida, Vermont and Canada. The 'Blackwing Ghost' is a fairly interesting plot thread as far as mysteries go, although I do remember solving that particular problem before Frank and Joe do when I originally read the book as a child. Still, the cover illustration on my edition rather gave the game away so it didn't take that much of an effort to join the dots together.

There's a fair amount of information given about the slave trade and the people involved in running it and fighting it and this is perhaps just the right amount to pique the interest of the target audience without causing them to "switch off" out of boredom.

Characterisation is, on the whole, good and, for once, we have the full complement of Frank and Joe's friends featured. It's a pity that none of them are used more ~ even Chet doesn't get as involved with this particular tale as he does in some of the others, preferring to spend his time engaged on his new butterfly hobby rather than helping out Frank and Joe. The Allens are well used and the Blackwing Mansion is well described, although the Madame Xavia subplot peters out and is never mentioned again which is rather disappointing.

Unfortunately, what lets the book down is the ease with which everything wrapped up at the end. This particular ghost writer has fallen into the old trap of using the "saved in the nick of time" ending which, whilst it may add to the overall pace of the book, feels rather cliched and contrived when you've read something along similar lines a lot in the previous books in the series.

Overall though it's an adequate enough tale that may keep some youngsters puzzled (depending on that cover illustration), although with the lack of mobile phones, internet, Ipods etc it does feel a little dated.



At the time of writing the new & used paperbacks are available from 1p upwards at Amazon Prime.

Summary: Eighty Second Hardy Boys Book