A Will to Survive (#156)

Plot: Strange pranks are happening at the Shorewood Nature Center, a local preserve founded on a dead recluse’s former estate. Since Callie is interning at the Center, Frank and Joe are called in to find the culprits and their motives.

“Borrowing” from the past: Frank and Joe pose as interns at the nature center, just one of the many fake jobs the Hardys have had over the years: sailor, cowboy, messenger at an industrial plant, car washer, salvage operator, stuntmen, construction, amusement park stooge, and lumberjack, among other jobs. The closest to this job they had was in 1943, when Frank and Joe worked at the State Experimental Farm for a month. While Frank and Joe don’t get paid by the nature center, they are promised a “token of appreciation.”

When Callie mentions a display case of rare lizards has been knocked over, Joe says, “Leaping lizards!” Joe used to say this sort of thing all the time in the 1960s — that, and things like, “Great crow!”, “Galloping grasshoppers!”, “Suffering swordfish!”, and my personal favorite, “Junipers!” “Leaping lizards!” was easily the most popular, though.

Wh-psssssssh!: Iola gives Joe a tape of Japanese flute music, which he leaves in the van. No word on whether he had ever listened to it, but it calms Frank (and blocks out traffic noise!) when he drives to New York.

Kung-fu action Joe: “Years of practicing jump shots and karate kicks” gives Joe the flexibility to do a back somersault and cling to a rock while careening down a hillside on his backside. Good for him.

Jamal Hawkins is ... : Not in this book.

Where is Bayport? At what used to be the southern range of moose, which the Shorewood Nature Center is trying to reintroduce into the area. Good luck with that. I have a feeling The Man will have a problem with that the first time someone's Mercedes gets an antler-shaped dent in it.

Opinions: Can you have a mystery when the detectives have no idea what the heck is going on? It’s possible, I suppose, but it isn’t much fun. Frank and Joe don’t realize Old Man Parent has left a fortune on his old estate for the Nature Center to find until two-thirds of the way through the book.

The Shorewood Nature Center is “more than half the size” of Central Park. Central Park is 843 acres (a little less than 700 acres if you don’t count the water). So SNC is roughly 450 acres, or about 3/4 of a square mile. Callie says it is “big enough to get lost in,” but that would only be if you were an idiot or were trying to find the Blair Witch. A good size for a nature center, but not enough to be called “enormous” or “seemed to stretch on forever.”

Other than the stupid clue Old Man Parent left behind to point the way to his hidden loot, this is a standard Hardy Boys in jeopardy story, with plenty of generally unsavory people to dislike. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Grade: B. Another day, and even more unpaid labor for Frank and Joe.