Watch Out For The Rabbit! (The Hardy Boys: The Infinity Clue - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: The Infinity Clue - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	18/08/09 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, pacy, well wrapped up at the end.

Disadvantages: Some unbelieveable elements

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 Infinity Clue was published in the US in 1981 & was the seventieth in the series. The book first appeared in the UK in 1983 & was numbered 68 when it was published by Armada.

This particular tale begins with Frank, Joe and their friend Biff Hooper visiting Biff's uncle at the Bayridge Nucleur Power Power. Almost as soon as they've arrived there's a small earthquake which is rather unusual as there are no known faults in the earth's crust in the area. Thankfully the staff at the plant manage to get the reactor under control so that there's no nucleur leak but Biff's uncle comments that the area for miles around could have been contaminated if the reactor core had cracked or if the cooling system had failed.

On returning home Frank & Joe are handed a message from their father which has come via the German ambassador in Washington DC:- "Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Tuesday Eleven Thirty. Contact H.W. - Beware Infinity."

Frank, Joe & their friend Chet (no Biff for the rest of this story) are soon off to Washington where they're met by the German amabassador's son Fritz. Someone's been following Fritz & later a protest sign is thrown as Fritz's car, shattering the windscreen. Could it have something to do with their father's note or it is down to the fact that the German government have cracked down on terrorist activities?

The mystery deepens when Chet stakes out the Smithsonian & a valuable gem known as the Faith diamond is stolen. The boys find themselves being implicated in the theft & then discover that the diamond was willed to the museum after it's owner apparently died in mysterious cirucmstances. Finding out that a geologist at the museum is called Hanna Werner the boys split their time between trying to clear their name over the diamond theft & attempting to find out how Werner's connected to the message that their father has sent.

It soon becomes apparent that a ruthless gang are detemined to prevent the Hardys from meddling in their business, with one of their number, The Rabbit, determined to bomb the boys out of existence....


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

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


As I mentioned in my review for "The Four Headed Dragon", the plots in the Hardy Boys books got "bigger" when Simon & Schuster took over the series &, as a result became slightly more unbelieveable than they had been previously. There's a nice little sequence in this book when the German ambassador take a step into reality & tells Frank & Joe that he's going to call in some federal agents to take over their investigation but, ultimately, they talk him out of it.

The two plots thread in this book:- their father's message & the missing Faith diamond are well woven together & it's nice to see the boys get back to doing some detective work after the lack of it in the previous book. Characterisation is generally good & the motives of the various characters in the book are well thought through & explained at the end.

There's a fair amount of running around but all of the locations are interesting in their own way. I particularly like Chapel Island where the inhabitants live simply, almost unchanged from the way that life was lived in the 1700s. This is a little reminiscent of the Amish in previous book "The Pentagon Spy"

One the the main plus points in this book is the proactive manner in which the story is wrapped up. This is the weakest part of the story in a lot of the previous books with Fenton Hardy and / or the authorities turning up in the nick of time & rounding up all of the criminals. In this book however, we see Frank, Joe & the others starting to capture people three chapters from the end of the book so the reader gets a scenario that attempts to be a little be more realistic rather than the usual climax with everything being wrapped up in two or three pages.

All in all this is a pacy, well plotted book with some decent characters. Some elements require a suspension of disbelief & I was a bit disappointed that Biff Hooper played no further part in the action after the first chapter. However, the plot threads are woven together well & the fact that the ending is more drawn out than the majority of the other books means that this has a number of plus points. This is a book that merits repeated reading.

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

Summary: Seventieth Hardy Boys Book