Three (mostly) made-up dialogues about The Hunt for the Four Brothers:
So what great idea do you have for me for Hardy Boys #155?
I want to send Frank and Joe to a summer resort —
We just did that four books ago — The Rocky Road to Revenge.
Oh … OK. Wait — they’ll be working at a summer resort in the mountains.
The resort was in the mountains in Rocky Road —
Which state?
Colorado.
Aha! This time they’ll be in North Carolina.
Mountains in North Carolina are better than a small town in Oklahoma, I suppose, or a train station in Indianapolis. So what’s the mystery?
It starts out with someone stealing soap from the resort bathrooms, and the victims see a wolf-like animal nearby at the time. This leads to whispers of a werewolf —
Ah, that’s better! You had me worried about this soap stealing. We’ve done the werewolf thing in Night of the Werewolf, but that was almost a hundred books and twenty years ago. How are you going to resolve the werewolf legend?
Oh, I’m going to drop it immediately. This is the Hardy Boys, not Scooby-Doo.
Then why bring it up — you know what? Let’s let that go. What are Frank and Joe going to be doing while a not-werewolf is stealing soap?
Lots of things! Lawn mowing! Picking up — and burning — trash! Dishwashing! Carrying luggage!
Those are things they do for their jobs, right? Not part of the investigation?
Well, their jobs become cover for their investigation, like always. The actual investigation will include more exciting things like airport codes and parking fines and stolen soap and a civil war.
A civil war could be interesting. Haven't done one of those in a while. Where?
Kormia.
OK. I’ll ask again, where?
Kormia!
*sigh* Where is Kormia? Is it in Africa? Eastern Europe? Asia?
Almost certainly!
Well, as long as that’s the only major non-American place mentioned in the book, that should be OK.
*silence*
Let’s move on. What are the villains trying to get away with? Maybe with a high-stakes crime, we can still polish this coprolite.
Gem theft, looting a country’s cultural heritage, and smuggling.
Now you’re talking!
But the Hardys won’t know the gems exist until about pg. 110 out of 151, and the other crimes are incidental to the main gem theft.
*deep sigh* So what about their chums? Will anyone from Bayport be working at this resort with them?
Oh, sure — Chet.
Why Chet? Not that I’m complaining — Chet’s always a great addition to the story — but why him instead of, say, Biff?
The Hardys will need someone to do investigative work for them when their elsewhere. They’ll need someone to cover their shifts when they’re investigating and someone to pressure into following them into danger so we can see how courageous the Hardys are. And in this case, they’ll need someone to steal soap for them.
So basically you’re saying the Hardys need someone to push around, and no one else would take their crap?
Exactly! I mean, at one point, the Hardys essentially work Chet so hard he gets only two hours sleep in 48 hours!
So Chet will be there. What about their girlfriends?
No. Why would they want to spend the summer with Frank and Joe? Besides, it would cramp Joe’s style. There’s a girl, Katie Haskell, at the resort who has a major crush on Joe.
That has potential. What happens between them?
Absolutely nothing! Joe mostly ignores her, but she’s there to loan him her car when he needs it to run errands and save his life when he’s stung 65 times by white-faced hornets.
Sixty-five times? That sounds like it would require a long hospital stay. Is that part of the climax?
No, they can take care of 65 hornet stings on an outpatient basis. I don’t think you have to stay overnight until, like, 90 or 105 hornet stings.
Huh. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?
Yes! And they use cutting edge stuff in this book — like the Internet and fax machines!
Fax machines?
Yes! You can send a whole page to a single person over phone lines! Grainy, black-and-white pages on horrible paper! It’s wonderful!
I know what a fax machine is. I was questioning whether … you know what, let’s skip that. What are you thinking about calling this soap-stealing extravaganza?
The Hunt for the Four Brothers!
The four brothers? What are the four brothers?
The gems!
You mean the ones Frank and Joe don’t know exist until almost ¾ of the way through the book?
Of course!
Are you sure you don’t want to go with something like The Great Mountain Gem Caper or The Mystery of Mountain Resort or even The Soap Smugglers?
Nope!
You know what? Fine. I’m going to start my whisky break now.
*****Continuing a discussion on investigation management:
“What in the world is going on down there?” Fenton asked. …
“Everything’s under control now, Dad,” Joe assured him. “I survived the hornets, and they got the shrapnel out of Frank’s leg.”
Fenton paused. “You call that being ‘under control’?” (p. 109)
“Yes, Dad. This time we had actual medical professionals treat our relatively minor wounds. In the past, I’ve been knocked out more times than I can count (literally — I think those concussions have done something to my brain), been kidnapped, electrocuted, tied up, gassed, almost drowned, attacked by more vicious predators than I could shake a stick at, starved, shaken sticks at vicious predators, been shot at, was shot with a freeze ray and frozen for 36 hours, wandered into the middle of violent revolutions, been hunted as the most dangerous game, struck by lightning, buried alive, and poisoned, all while wandering around with no supervision and only the occasional medical attention. Later I plan to careen down a mountainside and fight a giant Russian in river rapids. But yeah, I think we have matters under control for the moment.”
“You have a point, son. Carry on, then — just let me know if I need to plan a funeral.”
*****How a discussion on geography should have ended:
“I have a hunch about was in those pet carriers you saw … Siberian huskies, and I mean Siberian.”
“What?” Joe asked.
Frank held up a printout he had pulled off the Internet. “The airport code IEV is for Kiev … in Russia!” (p. 70)
“But Frank, Kiev is nowhere near Siberia — not really.”
“What?”
“It’s hundreds of miles from Kiev to the Ural Mountains, which are the western border of Siberia. It would be like saying Omaha or St. Louis is in the Rocky Mountains.”
“But —”
“Eurasia is a large landmass, Frank. You’re the smart one. You should know this.”
“But it’s — I mean, it’s the Russian connection. I know Russia is a big country, but I just got confused.”
“Well, you say that, but that’s working under the assumption that Kiev is in Russia. I know for almost the first half of your life Kiev was part of the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union doesn’t exist any more. Kiev is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, which is an entirely different country.”
“Not part of Russia?”
“No. Ukraine borders Russia, and it used to be part of the USSR, but it’s been independent for almost a decade now.”
“Gee, thanks, Joe! If you hadn’t corrected me, I would have spent the rest of the adventure saying Kiev was in Russia, making the Russian who’s lurking around the obvious suspect. That would have been humiliating!”
“Yes, and just think if the adults around us didn’t correct us — think of how embarrassed they would be!” *wiiiiiiink*
