Mystery of the Phantom Heist by Franklin W. Dixon

Hardy Boys Adventures 2 Mystery of the Phantom Heist by Franklin W. Dixon

Some of the old gang from the original series is back in this second book in the Hardy Boys Adventures. Chet returns as the overweight best friend. Also, Tony and Chet’s sister, Iola, make appearances, although Iola is no longer Joe’s girlfriend. I think that the girlfriends were “dropped” in this series so that Frank and Joe can angst over girls who appear in the story—something that couldn’t happen if they were “going steady”.

 

The author tries very hard to make the plot for this adventure something that could realistically involve a couple of high school boy detectives. Someone is playing pranks around Bayport like dropping eggs into the book return at the library and the pranks are becoming an increasing nuisance for the city. The culprits hide their faces with bandanas and call themselves the Scare Devils. And it turns out that the Scare Devils don’t like Frank and Joe trying to figure out who they are. (In fact, it was super easy to figure out who they are. They post their videos online and their leader is not very secretive, but the police are contradictorily interested in ending the pranks and not interested in considering that the son of one of the most influential men in town could be behind them.)

 

While all of this is happening, a sweet sixteen party is about to be thrown for the richest girl in town and Frank, Joe, and Chet are not invited. This gives the author the chance to play the rich kid versus everyone else card. The rich kids go to Bayport Academy and are snobs. Everyone else goes to Bayport High. It starts out looking a little two dimensional, but that picture improves as the book develops.

 

The climax of the tale is nicely put together as Frank and Joe figure out the connection between the party and the Scare Devils and hurry to avert catastrophe one step ahead of the police.