Dead Man Walking (& Making A General Nuisance Of Himself......) (The Hardy Boys: Track of the Zombie - Franklin W. Dixon)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The Hardy Boys: Track of the Zombie - Franklin W. Dixon
Date:	19/08/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Secret door sequence is quite well described

Disadvantages: Dull plotting, undeveloped characters, weak ending.

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....

Track Of The Zombie was published in the US in 1982 & was the seventy first in the series. The book first appeared in the UK in 1983 & was numbered 69 when it was published by Armada.

The book starts with Frank & Joe noticing a couple of cars driving erratically whilst they're on their way home. One car runs the other off the road. Joe stops to see whether the driver is ok whilst Frank takes off after the other car which ends up escaping after a rather fortuitous freight train cuts off Frank's pursuit. The driver of the cart that has been run off the road is named Rolf Allen & he explains that he's a relative of of character from "The Stone Idol".

Rolf explains that his parents own an isolated house in Hunter's Hollow, Vermont & that a syndicate have previously tried to buy the house from his parents. Since his parents refused there's been a forest which may have been started to force Rolf's parents into selling. Frank & Joe suggest that the person who drove him off the road may have something to do with the fire whereupon Rolf tells them that the other car was driven by a zombie!

Sometime later the boys are visited by a John Tariski who tells them about some acts of sabotage at his circus which he'd like them to investigate. Frank & Joe explain that they've already agreed to take on a case & suggest that he employs Chet, Biff, Tony & Phil to investigate things for him.

After arriving at Rolf's house Frank & Joe spot the zombie wearing the uniform of a Hessian soldier. They give chase and lose him but find a matchbox reading "Hessian Hotel" on it. Investigations at the hotel reveal that it's being used by a gang of thieves who's leader communicates with them via radio. However, Frank & Joe are unable to identify who the thieves leader is, or capture the zombie.

Chet, Biff, Tony & Phil later turn up to help fight a forest fire & Chet comments that the circus has a zombie act named Bones Arkin. Frank & Joe decide to follow this line of enquiry but soon discover that a circus full of snakes, lions & sabotaged equipment is not the safest place to be.........


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

+ Fenton Hardy (mentioned but doesn't appear)
+ Laura Hardy
+ Aunt Gertrude
+ Chet Morton
+ Biff Hooper
+ Tony Prito
+ Phil Cohen
+ Chief Ezra Collig


After a decent tale in the previous book, "The Infinity Clue" this offering is rather lame. How convenient that Rolf's house & the place where the Tariski Circus is going should be in the same area. The Circus subplot is ignored for the first half of the book or so until Chet, Biff, Tony & Phil turn up at the Allen house to help put out a forest fire. Then, they abandon their enquiries on the Allen case to go off with their friends from home to investigate the circus subplot which means that the two elements are kept separate for the majority of the book.

The zombie angle is all a bit Scooby-Doo / cartoonish & page 9 of my Armada edition has a picture of the Zombie following Rolf which clearly shows that (s)he's wearing a mask. The piece of string / elastic holding it on rather gives the game away. The identity of the zombie was, I felt, rather obvious.

The Circus sabotage plot thread is rather average. There are a number of suspects who may or may not be involved with the sabotage but none of the circus performers are in any well developed in terms of characterisation. Some are little more than names on a page.

The book does include quite a bit of Frank & Joe doing some detecting (unlike "The Four Headed Dragon") and, to be fair, this isn't one of those books when every single person in the gang gets rounded up together in the last few pages. This time we have a couple of gang members captured separately, prior to the main gang being rounded up. Having said that, the police do manage to time their arrival to round everyone up very well & the reasoning behind the forest fires near the Allen House is weak. So, all in all, this is a below average offering that leaves the reader feeling rather unsatisfied when they'd finished it.



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

Summary: Seventy First Hardy Boys Book