Witches? Intriguing....for a short while (The Hardy Boys: The Witchmaster's Key - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: pmcds

Product:	The Hardy Boys: The Witchmaster's Key - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	09/03/09 (71 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Intriguing tale

Disadvantages: Disappointing characterisation and storytelling

The Witchmaster's Key is the 55th in the series of popular Hardy Boys books written predominantly for teenage boys. The books are released under the pseudonym Franklin W Dixon but are written by a number of different ghost writers.

This particular Hardy Boys book sees our heroes, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, sons of supersleuth Fenton Hardy, come into contact with what appears to be a coven of witches as they investigate grave robbings (shiver) amongst other things. The story is a bit lacklustre and the characters seem tired and uninspired. As a general rule, the Hardy Boys books that I like the most are the ones which seem more believable, and I am not sure where I lie with the believability factor in this one.

For a start, it involves the strange world of the occult, using witches and a fabled witchmaster to give a kind of Scooby Doo feel about the whole thing. It seems rather strange in this sense, and I found it quite easy to overlook the lack of excitement in the storytelling because there was a little intrigue as to the potential reality or lack thereof with regard to the story. Even so, it wasn't the greatest tale, and the intrigue wore off after a while, leaving me without much guston to finish reading.

The Hardy Boys books are written with teenage boys in mind, and when I was part of the intended audience I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Now I am a little older, I find the storylines tend to be rather unbelievable. The fact that two teenage boys could be 'hired' to sole international and dangerous crimes seems unlikely, but then, this is fiction and I try not to let this element of it spoil it for me.

The Witchmaster's Key is currently available from amazon for next to nothing, as are the majority of Hardy Boys books.

Summary: The 55th Hardy Boys book