Franklin W. Dixon
Simon & Schuster, 1987
Genre:
Mystery
Description
In the first volume of the new Hardy Boys Casefiles, Joe and
Frank Hardy are dragged to the Bayport Mall by girlfriends Iola and Callie to distribute
flyers for the upcoming presidential election and the candidate who is coming
to the mall to speak on his views against terrorism. When Iola returns to the
boys’ car to get more flyers, she is killed in a bomb explosion. The Hardys are
thrust into an adventure that is way more bad-ass and dangerous than any they
have solved before.
Turns out they were the intended victims of the car bomb as
their father is working as head of security for the candidate’s visit and the
bomb was planted to try and get him off the job. The boys are whisked away to
safety by the Gray Man, an agent who works for the Network, an organization
that Fenton Hardy has worked with before. They are tracking down a group of
terrorists known as the Assassins. The boys refuse to go off into hiding,
especially since Joe wants revenge for Iola’s death so the boys go up against
assassins in the mall, terrorists on a plane to London, an explosion in a safe
house, deadly car chases, and being tied up to the very same pillar with the
bombs that are to go off during the candidate’s speech.
Doesn’t sound like your ordinary Hardy Boys mystery huh?
That’s because it’s not. Keep reading to find out why.
Thoughts and
Nuggets of Wisdom for Research
The first Casefiles book, Dead on Target, has the cover catch line of “Revenge is always a
personal matter” and it starts off with a bang . . . literally (Dixon, 1987):
“Get out of my way, Frank!”
Joe Hardy shoved past his brother, shouting to be heard over
the roar of the flames. Straight ahead, a huge fireball rose like a mushroom
cloud over the parking lot. Flames shot fifty feet into the air, dropping
chunks of wreckage—wreckage that just a moment earlier had been their yellow
sedan.
“Iola’s in there! We’ve got to get her out!” (p. 1)
Right away the new, more “mature” Hardy Boys series has set
the tone for its future 127 volumes as on the very first page, Iola Morton, Joe
Hardy’s long-time girlfriend (of literally 60 years) is killed in a car bomb
planted by a terrorist organization known as The Assassins—a car bomb meant for
the Hardys. From this day forward in series book history, no longer would
mystery titles feature the predominant words of “mystery,” “clue,” and
“secret”; instead they would be riddled with the more gritty “murder,” “dead,”
“deadly,” “die,” “hate,” and more. If
current movies always seem to contain an obligatory sex sequence, most of the
post-1980s series always seem to contain obligatory flight scenes. Their
violence is impressive when first encountered, but over time a reader can
easily become inured to it.
So what
makes the Hardy Boys Casefiles the most violent youth series of all time? First
of all, for the first time in series book history a consistently appearing
character is killed off, and not in a pretty way. She doesn’t die of illness—she’s
blown to bits by a bomb (so much so there isn’t even a body for the funeral). Secondly,
throughout the Casefiles series as a whole, emphasis is placed on violence,
threats of death, fights, injuries, and bombs. A far cry from the original
Hardy Boys mysteries that dealt primarily with petty criminals and supernatural
occurrences.
Let’s look at a few of those scenes of violence. As the
terrorists target the boys in the mall, Frank and Joe decide to run into a
crowded theatre because it will be dark and they can avoid being seen: “Frank
struck first, his hand hurtling down like a blade onto the man’s wrist. The gun
flew from his grasp. Joe stepped in, throwing a punch at the man’s stomach. But
even as Joe swung, the man twisted aside, driving his elbow into the pit of
Frank’s stomach. Frank folded, and the man launched a killing blow to Frank’s
neck, a blow that missed as Joe kicked desperately into the back of the guy’s
leg. The legs bucked, but the man launched a clawlike finger at Joe’s throat.
Joe hunched his shoulders and landed a solid punch into the assailant’s face.
The man staggered back, and Joe charged forward, butting his head and knocking
him to the floor. Joe jumped for a pindown” (p. 28).
Chapter seven is nothing but an explosion of violence (pun
intended)! After the car chase, the Gray Man takes the boys home and tells them
that someone from the Network is going to come and take them into hiding for
their safety. The resourceful Hardys don’t like the idea of hiding so they
decide to follow Gray Man to London
where he said the Assassins are supposedly headquartered. Frank, using mad
computer hacker skills, gets the boys tickets on the same airplane, in seats
right next to the Gray Man. Little do they know that the little old man and his
female companion in a wheelchair they saw board the plane earlier are (a) not
old and (b) are terrorists sent to blow up the plane. Once they are safely in
the air, the man comes out of the restroom, having removed his makeup, with a
grenade in his hand declaring the plane now to be under the control of the
Assassins. Before he even reaches the cockpit (Dixon, 1987):
Frank burst from his seat, snapping a karate blow at the
hijacker. It connected with his right wrist, paralyzing the hand. The grenade
flew from nerveless fingers.
But the hijacker’s other hand was operating fine. It sent a
spray of Mace into Frank’s face. The acrid stench of the chemical filled the
air as Frank involuntarily backed away. He was choking and reeled in sudden
blindness.
“Now you pay.” The hijacker’s voice was venomous as he
prepared to club the helpless Frank.
But Joe snapped open his seat belt. He barreled out of his
row and crashed into the guy. They staggered across the aisle, crashing against
the seat on the other side. Joe’s hand clamped over the top of the spray can.
He didn’t want the Mace in his face.
He could hear sputtering sounds from the spray nozzle as the
contents of the can squirted into the palm of his hand. Even there, the
chemicals burned his skin. Still worse, they made his hand slippery. He was
loosing his grip!
The hijacker twisted Joe’s hand—and the can—free. Joe had
just one move to make. Bracing one foot behind the man’s ankle, he propelled
them both into the laps of the people on the seat. At the same moment, he
shoved his own chemical-covered hand straight into the terrorist’s eyes. . . .
But the Mace worked against him, too, as Joe kept his soaked
hand over the man’s face. The hijacker bucked and tore his face free, which was
the opening Joe had been waiting for. As soon as the man had blindly twisted
out of his grip, Joe’s other hand drew back, cocked in a fist, and homed in for
the point of the guy’s jaw. (p. 49-50)
Meanwhile, Frank’s vision is coming back to him and he sees
the female terrorist try to make a dive for the grenade: “Frank lunged over
her, blindly kicking out with his foot. . . . The woman whirled on Frank,
hissing something in a language he couldn’t understand. She fumbled for a
second with the large pin on her blouse. Frank squinted. No, it was too large
to be a pin. It was more like the blade of a stiletto” (Dixon, 1987, p. 50).
The female terrorist pushes Frank into the Gray Man and
grabs the stewardess as a hostage, threatening to kill her unless she is given
the grenade. The Gray Man tries to convince her to take him, a government
official, instead. As she hesitates, Frank sees his chance (Dixon, 1987):
He launched a flying kick, past the Gray Man’s side, past
the stewardess’s ear—right into the pit of the female terrorist’s stomach.
The woman folded in the middle. At the same time, the Gray
Man swept his arm out, pushing the stewardess away. Then Frank lashed his foot
out again in a high kick. It connected with the female terrorist, and she flew
down the aisle, landing flat on her back, the knife flashing just inches from
the stewardess’s face.
The Gray Man moved fast. One foot landed on the blade of the
knife; the other kicked the woman’s hand away. (p. 50-52).
In the end of the adventure, with Joe having sent the main
Assassin falling to his death in the mall, Joe tells the Gray Man that he hopes
they get a chance to work together again. Joe tells Frank, “This is more than
just doing something for Iola. I realized it when that killer was falling. As
long as there are Assassins, there’ll always be more Al-Rousasas. . . . I
wanted a line to the government. And we’ve got that reward money coming. Enough
to replace our car and get some good equipment. And I hoped you would be in it,
too. Look, it’s not like I want us to give up our usual cases. But there are
bigger things going on these days and we could make a difference” (p. 152).
The Hardy Boys Casefiles was important for a number of
reasons in the study of series books. First, it made history when it became the
first series to kill off a main character. Second, it ushered in a new era of
violence in series books that moved the plots beyond the more old-fashioned
Scooby-Doo-esque suspense and villains to a more James Bond-esque world of
bombs, guns, and explosions galore. One concludes that the youth series fiction
have degenerated from the relatively innocent mysteries and adventure of the
pre-1960s to a highly serious and cynical stressing of violence and shock for
their own sakes. In this way youth are quickly thrust into so-called adulthood
and bereft of innocence at earlier ages. Also significant is the fact that
throughout the history of series books, objectors to the series have aimed
their criticisms at the common poor literary quality and repetitiveness and at
the racial, national, and sexual biases rampant in the books. To date, there
still has been no real objection to their violence.
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