Status Updates From Missing Chums (Hardy Boys #4)

Alternatively, I'll accept the gritty, dark reboot where the chief of police is trying to get the Hardy Boys killed because I'm not really seeing an alternative explanation for why he sends them out in a broken motor boat in the middle of a storm to chase down bank robbers.

The chief of police (a) being backup to arrive at a bank robbery and (b) laughing at the idea of the Hardy Boys having anything to do with said bank robbery despite eyewitnesses really makes we wish we had a gritty, dark reboot where the Hardy Boys are two clean-cut school boys who secretly rob banks in their free time and trade off their Dad's fame to trick the local police.

*And a bank robbery. How could I forget the bank robbery?

3 chapters in and we've got the police chief asking two teenagers to take on a case, a guy falling from a boat house ceiling into the water below during a prank gone wrong, a sailboat trying to ram a motor boat, two thugs threatening a store owner, and...chicken dinner. What the plot lacks in character development it more than makes up for in pizzazz.

This book kicks off with the chief of police asking two teenage boys (one a minor) to "put on old clothes, muss your hair, and hang around Shantytown" to figure out what has the local bums in an "ugly mood" because their behavior is worrying "the charitable landowner who permits them to stay" in a squatter colony.
Which, like, I'm laughing, but also...