Dude, Where's My Car (& Coin)? (The Hardy Boys: The Vanishing Thieves - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: The Vanishing Thieves - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	12/08/09 (44 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reasonably waced paced, Car & coin plot threads are interesting

Disadvantages: A bit contrived. Never fully grabs & holds the attention

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 Stone Idol was published in the US in 1980 & was the sixty sixth in the series. The book first appeared in the UK in 1982 & was numbered 64 when it was published by Armada.

Frank, Joe, Callie & Iola are eating pizza together at the Bayport Diner when Chet arrives & introduces his & Iola's cousin Vern Nelson. The six of them decide to go the the cinema to see "a monster matinee" & leave the diner just in time to see Vern's car being stolen. They give chase but are unsuccessful in catching the thief. By sheer coincidence the boys father is working on a case involving car thefts. The description of the car thief convinces him that Vern's car was stolen by Red Sluice, a member of the gang he's after.

Laura Hardy asks Vern about his family & his stay in Bayport & he tells her that he stopped off to visit his relatives the Morton's on the way to California. An uncle of his has recently died there & has left Vern a 1913 Liberty Head nickel in his will. There are only 5 of these in existence & the coin is worth over $100,000. Unfortunately the coin has disappeared!

It doesn't take long for Chet to suggest that he, Frank, Joe & Vern go out to California to look into the disappearance of the coin but what sounds to be a fairly simple trip turns out to be filled with danger as the boys tangle with a car theft gang, the plane they're travelling on is hijacked by a man wearing explosives & Joe finds himself in the Atlantic Ocean inches away from a shark with ship or boat in sight to help him........


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

+ Fenton Hardy
+ Laura Hardy
+ Aunt Gertrude
+ Chet Morton
+ Iola Morton
+ Callie Shaw


This is another average Hardy Boys book. It's nice to see Chet back after his absence in "The Stone Idol", but his cousin Vern isn't that well characterised which is a bit of a shame. The car theft plot thread is an interesting one but ultimately falls apart for me due to an over reliance on luck, timing & coincidence. However, I do remember liking this book a bit more when I was a child so perhaps I'm being a tad unfair judging it through adult eyes rather than from the perspective of the target audience. It is however, hard to take a gang of car thieves seriously who have names like Crafty Kraft, Red Sluice & Big Harry!

The book is quite well paced & there's enough action to keep the reader interested. Joe's brush with the shark which I mentioned above is well set up & makes the reader wonder how he's going to survive, although the resolution is a bit contrived & takes a bit of acceptance. The ease with which the car gang avoid the police on at least two occasions stretches the credulity of the reader a little too.

As usual, there are facts to be picked up by the reader, on this occasion related to coins issued in the United States (Vern's a collector) which are fairly interesting. But, somehow the plot just never really grabs the reader so you're left thinking "that was an okay story" rather than "I enjoyed that one more than the others". So, like "The Stone Idol" this will keep any Hardy Boys fan fairly happy but it wouldn't be a book that you'd use to try & win over any new fans with.


At the time of writing the book is available in hardback for £4.26 from Amazon Prime. New & used paperbacks are available from 1p upwards.

Summary: Sixty Sixth Hardy Boys Book