Mystery

It seems a bit obvious to start a review of a Hardy Boys book by describing it as “totally bananas”, but bananas it was. I concede that it was a fast-paced read; I finished it in about an hour. But wow, is it ever a fantasy novel. As a thirty-something, I am rolling on the FLOOR laughing at the thought of a 17yo and a 16yo being authorized to investigate top-secret spy cases and go by themselves to Iceland to do so! Not to mention their being experts with radio transmission technology and crack private pilots who can land twin-engine planes with aplomb on a glacier, despite only having had single-engine experience.

In terms of other characters, this story features a good deal of Chet and Biff, although Chet is carrying the idiot ball on this one, spilling the beans about their trip despite being expressly warned not to do so. (As soon as they said “You can’t tell anybody!” I was like “Well, this will be all over town in the next few paragraphs.”) I liked that the story was set in Iceland and featured some actual Icelandic people. A nice touch too was including the U.S. military base at Keflavík, which indicated that at least *some* homework had been done for this one.

I read this as an ebook from my hometown library, and it was obviously a scan of one of the original blue hardcovers. The illustrations and maps hadn’t been formatted properly for ebooks, with the map of Iceland getting cut off in the middle and being spread over two pages. And there were some OCR errors; my favourite was “Biff flooper” instead of “Biff Hooper”.

Overall, this book was just OK. I finished it and found it amusing, but it’s not a book I feel compelled to own. ( )

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