The Ice-Cold Case (#148)

So I took it pretty easy on the last book, Trial and Terror, giving it some leeway because it seemed to be attempting to deal with a touchy subject with some subtlety. The Ice-Cold Case, on the other hand, will not get the same benefit of the doubt, even though its title correctly used a hyphen in a compound adjective.

Why?, you might ask. It’s simple: Frank and Joe are morons.

As the book begins, Frank and Joe drive Phil, Chet, Callie, and Iola to Sarah Kwan’s birthday party. (This isn’t what makes Frank and Joe morons; just give me a moment.) Now, given Hardy Boys’ depictions of East Asians and Asian-Americans, having a friend of Asian descent is kinda a milestone for the Hardys, especially since they don’t have any members of the Kwan family cross-dress to make their girlfriends jealous or Chet horny, like they forced Tom Wat to do in Footprints under the Window (#12). No, in this case, Frank and Joe attend a party at the beautiful lakeside home of the prosperous Kwan family, and —

Ha ha, no. Frank and Joe don’t attend the party. Mr. Kwan immediately dangles the possibility of investigating a series of robberies around the lake, and Frank and Joe are off like a shot — ignoring the party, their friends, the birthday girl, and even their proposed skating race. They get in the middle of a squabble between unruly hockey players and ice fishermen. The cops are called, a football teammate of Joe’s who’s a bit of a jerk but basically good freund is arrested, and the Hardys scarf down burnt burgers before taking off.

Now, this is usually where I would insert a reprobate roll call, but I’m not going to bother this time. The obvious suspects are obvious; since Frank and Joe waste their time on investigative avenues that are unlikely to pan out, the brothers come across as dullards. What are they overlooking? Very soon in the investigation, it becomes clear the thieves should meet certain criteria:

1. They must have access to the lake without motor transportation because the Kwans would hear a vehicle driving by;
   
2. They must be around the lake frequently, since the thieves react quickly to what the Hardys do;
   
3. They must be from out of town or have out-of-town connections, as the stolen goods haven’t shown up in any local pawn shop or with any fences; and
   
4. Their robberies are, for some reason, concentrated in the winter months.

Who meets those criteria? Not Ray Nelson, the jerk who played football with Joe; he has alibis for too many of the robberies, and besides, Ray claims to have helped the Hardys “find that kid who ran away … [and catch] Rob Dee stealing stuff from the gym lockers” (15). (We haven’t seen Ray before, but since Frank and Joe don’t contradict him, we should believe him.) Since Ray didn’t do it, his friends, John and Vinnie, are similarly in the clear; besides, they work at Burger World, which I don’t think any self-respecting teen thief would subject himself to. (Burger World: Circumnavigate your taste buds with Burger Flavor!®) The idea that the culprits are the Kwans, peripheral characters introduced only to serve as an entre for the Hardys into the case, is laughable. None of the fishermen are fleshed out enough to be the villain, except for chief ice hole Ernie Tuttle; however, Ernie is not a criminal — just a cranky old man who runs (and lives in) a fishing shop on the lake.

So who do these clues fit? Tuttle’s grandkids, Neil and Stu, who come up from Maryland every winter to help their grandfather with his fishing shop. They fit all the criteria. In my notes on the book, I’d decided they were the culprits before p. 20. But the Hardys take half the book before focusing on the Tuttles, and only on p. 132 does Frank admit “hesitantly” admit Ernie might have nothing to do with the crimes.

Come on, guys! You’re supposed to be good at this! I think it’s time to play the Moron Game!™ (modified version). Joe Hardy, why are you a moron?

“Joe wasn’t going to let go of the investigation for the sake of a birthday party” (20).

Well, that’s more inconsiderate than stupid. What about your opinion of the housesitter you beat up after breaking into the home he was watching?

“‘You think with all that’s going on around here, he’d be more appreciative that we were trying to protect him,’ Joe grumbled.” (48) Also: after the boys beat up the housesitter, Joe says, “He seemed to have an attitude” (52).

That’s … an unrealistic reading of the situation, Joe. You can’t expect beat up someone and have them thank you. It just doesn’t work that way.

Maybe you can show your wit (or lack thereof) through humor, when Phil offers to help despite his aversion to being outside in the freezing cold?

“‘You know I’m available to help,’ Phil said.
‘I thought you hated the cold,’ Joe said.
‘I told you I can fix the heat in [the van],’ Phil said.
‘I meant the cold on the lake,’ Joe said, and they all laughed” (118).

That’s not a joke. That’s the result of carbon monoxide leaking into the van’s passenger space.

Well, we’ve always known Joe was the intellectual weak link. So, Frank, are you a moron? When someone might be shooting at the house you’re in, what do you do?

“Frank threw open the door and flew out in a spiral” (103).

There’s a fine line between stupid and incomprehensible, and that sentence lands on both sides of the line. I can’t imagine how a human being can run in a spiral, let alone fly in one — does he spin out of the house like a thrown football, or is he trying to run in overlapping circles to confuse the shooter? (Think about walking out your front door and walking to the street or mailbox “in a spiral”; you’d look like a total nimrod.)

Well, what about when Joe asks, “How many [nightspots for partying] are open ... late?”

“‘Not too many,’ Frank said. ‘Let’s check them later’” (69).

So you’re telling me that a city of 50,000 doesn’t have a plethora of spots where people can come to your town and help you party it down? And more to the point, you want us to believe you know anything about those places? (The boys find Officer Con Riley hanging around the Dew Drop Inn, which probably has an active nightlife. I’m assuming it’s a little redneck-looking joint and that Con is waiting for a scuffle involving a longhaired hippie chasing five big dudes, including a faithful follower of Brother John Birch, around the parking lot in his mag-wheeled, four-on-the-floor Chevrolet.)

Let’s expand this to the Hardys chums. Chet Morton, why are you a moron?

“Chet was a longtime friend of the Hardys and was used to such abuse from them” (23).

Abuse! Come on, Chet, have some pride, and just walk away from them! You’re more than just a reliable vessel for their horrible comedy stylings.

Hey, Phil Cohen, what do you have to say when you and your friends are almost run down by a stolen truck, which misses Frank by inches?

“Do you think they were really trying to kill us?” (111).

Frank doesn’t believe so, but as we’ve established, Frank may be a moron!

What about the cops? Con Riley, why are you a moron?

“Frank hoped Riley wouldn’t realize he was being grilled and clam up on them” (18).

Riley doesn’t realize a pair of teenagers are transparently pumping him for information, and he gives the boys an update on the investigation without getting anything from them. Later on, he equates a broken van window in severity with arson. On the other hand, he’s getting teenagers to do his work for free, so maybe he’s not as big a simpleton as I think.

***

It all ends up fine, of course. The Tuttle kids are captured, Ray is cleared, and he and Joe “gave each other big football-player hugs” (143). (I … I don’t think that’s a thing football players do, usually, but I admit I never played high-school football.) The Kwans throw an old-school party to celebrate the Hardys’ success, and since Frank and Joe don’t have to share the spotlight with a character who will never be seen again, they are quite willing to be part of the festivities rather than looking for something more interesting to do.

The book does have a bit of drama; when Joe manages to fall through thin ice — the brothers claimed to have been lured onto the thin ice, but they have no one to blame but themselves — the author manages to put some real drama into his rescue and recovery. Joe is dragged to the Kwans’ house, where Mrs. Kwan, a nurse, treats him. Part of the treatment involves submerging Joe in a warm bath, and Mrs. Kwan insists Joe remove all his clothes before going into the bath. This may be the first time a non-blood-related female has seen either of the brothers naked. A milestone! And honestly, I figured both brothers were never-nudes, taking showers in their jean shorts.

Later, Joe’s hanging around the Kwans, waiting for his clothes to dry while dressed only in a bathrobe and heavy socks. Joe “had an embarrassed look on his face … ‘I feel weird hanging around here in a bathrobe,’ he said. ‘I mean, there’s a girl from school here’” (99). It’s good to know that even though he had a near-death experience, his shame reflex is still strong.

After the EMTs arrive, Joe declines to go to the hospital based on Mrs. Kwan’s recommendation: “I think he’ll be fine,” she says, despite Joe having been submerged in freezing water for three minutes (98). Joe, you don’t deserve the sort of treatment a hospital would give you until you catch the criminals! In the meanwhile, rub some dirt on your frostbite, you pansy, and you’ll be fine.

***

Also: for those of you who are wondering, Bayport is located at latitude 40 degrees north, latitude 73 degrees west. That’s south of Long Island and east of New Jersey in the Atlantic, located in international waters. If you accept that the minutes and seconds have been left off the degrees, then it’s on Long Island. (West of New York City is 74 degrees west; almost all of Connecticut is 41 degrees north.)

Trial and Terror (#147)

Trial and Terror is an awful title. First, there’s no real terror in this book. Secondly, Cliché-Bot’s brother, Mystery Cliché-Bot, suggested “Trial and Terror” for every single Simon & Simon and Murder, She Wrote episode in the ‘80s, and it’s still bitter about every rejection. I mean, I can see why Pocket Books gave in on this one — half of all robot uprisings start when Mystery Cliché-Bot gets frustrated and starts trying to kill humans — but that doesn’t make it less of an awful title.

Trial and Terror is set during Christmas break, that most terrible time of the year; for the Hardy Boys, Christmas means crime. (That would have been a better cover tagline — not a good one, but still better than what the book ended up with.) Trial and Terror begins with Frank touring New York’s criminal courts for a civics class, with Joe tagging along because, well, it’s not like he’s got any ideas about what to do with himself. The idea that Frank needs to learn how the justice system works is offensive on many levels: after 147 books, we know the Hardys are justice, Fenton must have drilled the legal system’s basics into his boys, and Frank should have testified in dozens of trials.

(Later in the book, Frank has to explain to Joe what Sing Sing is, which is so wrong — Frank and Joe have probably sent dozens of men there. The brothers should be getting fan mail from Ossining on a daily basis. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gertrude even had a penpal there!)

I mean, I get it: This Dixon portrays the Hardy brothers as beginners to the justice system to make the writer’s exposition less awkward. I understand. But everyone in the Hardys’ orbit, from their closest friends to their high-school principal and part-time employers, should at least have testified in a trial and probably should have been involved enough to want to watch one from beginning to end.

But I shouldn’t criticize the book too harshly. Trial and Terror has some ambitions past showing school-age kids the rough workings of justice in America, and it needs all its subtlety for that. Because what Trial and Terror wants to show readers is what happens when the justice system has something rotten inside it; can justice be found then?

Nick Rodriguez is accused of the attempted murder of his girlfriend, soap ingénue Karen Lee, and Frank and Joe just wander into his trial. (It’s hard to believe there would be any open seats for random lookie-loos, but I suppose we must suspend our disbelief somewhere.) Joe deals with the case entirely on a surface level; seeing the nattily groomed defendant, he says Nick “doesn’t look like a murderer” (2), but after the prosecution’s first witness, he’s sure Nick did it. (Although, as Sideshow Bob reminds us, attempted murder is barely a crime.)

Frank isn’t so sure, and to make sure Nick gets a robust defense, he offers the brothers’ services (for free!) to Nick’s twin sister, Nellie, and Nick’s defense attorney. Nellie says she has “nothing to lose” (16), but that’s not true: If the Hardys destroy or confuse forensic evidence, it could hamper Nick’s defense or appeals, and if the Hardys harass witnesses or commit crimes in their investigations, the judge could censor the defense, putting them in a hole. Myers, the defense attorney, accepts them on the strength of their first day’s work, but he doesn’t bother to ask for references. Perhaps he’s not the sharpest lawyer; his entire defense of Nick includes only character witnesses, which, uh, isn’t the strongest of evidence.

Frank realizes that finding another suspect would be the best way to inspire reasonable doubt in the jury — although Frank, expert in civics, thinks the threshold is “some doubt” (18). So he and Joe rustle up a Reprobate Roll Call!

• Nick himself. Although it would be unexpected if the Hardys’ client were guilty — it blew my juvenile mind when Frank and Joe’s client was the guilty one in The Masked Monkey (#51) — Nick is not above reproach. After Karen breaks off their engagement and relationship, he can’t let it go; he persists in trying to re-establish their relationship for months afterwards. After he confesses his continued love of Karen to the Hardys with a flourish of fist pounding, Joe (again) thinks Nick is guilty, and the prosecutor forces Nellie to admit that a month before the attempted murder, Nick said to Karen, “Sometimes you make me so mad I want to kill you” (76).
  
  
• Alex Steel, the super in Karen Lee’s building and owner of an awesome name. Frank and Joe suspect he might have attacked Lee on behalf of the building’s owner, who is trying to get elderly residents of the building’s rent-controlled apartments to leave so he can renovate and charge more for the apartments. Karen, who used to work in the prosecutor’s office, organized the resistance to the owner’s tactics. Also, Steel is an unpublished writer who writes murder mysteries, and his bloody titles make the stars of Trial and Terror suspicious. Fortunately, Frank and Joe don’t try anything so stupid as to try to find scenes similar to Karen’s attack in Steel’s writings.
  
  
• Fred Garfein, the owner of Karen’s building. If he didn’t get Alex to attack Karen, he could have hired someone else. He’s rich, and he doesn’t believe in rent control. It’s unfair to building owners! He’s obviously not a supporter of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party.
  
  
• John Q., an obsessed fan of Karen’s. He sends her fan mail that insists they are “fated to be together” (46), he talks to his TV when Karen is onscreen as if she can hear him, and he attends the trial incognito. At least he doesn’t call himself her number one fan.
  
  
• “Lunatic” Lucy Velloni, a reporter who has an exclusive in with Karen. Her tabloid colleagues denigrate her, which Velloni believes is because she doesn’t restrict herself to traditionally feminine topics. (Given that her “crazy” actions tend to be non-feminine, action-junkie pursuits like running into a burning building and jockeying her car through New York traffic like a taxi driver, I’d say she has a point.) After she attempts to save a girl from that burning building, Frank and Joe mostly drop her as a suspect — even though Frank and Joe have to complete the rescue, and she did attempt to murder Frank by pushing him off the top of a building. (She later protests she didn’t realize the edge of the building was there.)
  
  
• Mystery suspect!

The first helpful item that Frank and Joe discover is that prosecutor Patricia Daggett withheld exculpatory evidence — evidence uncovered by the police or prosecution that might tend to exonerate the defendant — from the defense. In this case, it’s that Karen had a key to Nick’s apartment with Nick’s name on it, which disappeared around the time of the attack. This might have allowed another person to plant evidence in Nick’s apartment. (Although this is the Hardy Boys universe, and a key isn’t necessary; lockpicking isn’t an uncommon skill.) Trial and Terror tries to sell the idea that this kind of misconduct could get a prosecutor imprisoned, but that’s extremely unlikely, even for a prosecutor who, like Daggett, makes a habit of withholding exculpatory evidence.

Just like in the last book I recapped, Frank and Joe get a lot of mileage out the excuse that they’re working on a school assignment; they even use that excuse to see busy developer Fred Garfein. (He doesn’t really listen to them, to be fair.) Other investigative tactics used include Joe picking the lock on a suspect’s apartment to get access while he’s gone (illegal methods that would be a good reason why the defense might not want to hire the brothers) and Frank using Fenton’s name to get some carpet fibers tested by the police. (The evidence room officer admits Fenton got him out of some “jams” (83) — and we know what that means. *Wiiiiiiink*.)

Since this is Christmas time, Frank stops into a New York jewelry store and purchases a cheap enamel ring with a butterfly on it for Callie. Joe doesn’t make a purchase; ostensibly, he has already acquired a present for Iola, as he says, “If you mess up with a girlfriend's present, it’s not a pretty sight” (62).

(Joe, if Iola is violent around you, it’s not your fault — even if she says you’re making her do it. Just … reach out and get help, man. This is not a joke.)

While rifling through Karen’s letters, the brothers come across a letter from an inmate at Sing Sing. The brothers head upstate and learn that Daggett withheld exculpatory evidence in his case, and Karen overheard an argument about that between Daggett and an investigator. (The inmate wanted Karen’s help in his plea to Daggett’s boss — a less confrontational way of attempting to get justice than the traditional lawsuit / appeal, and one that is not likely to succeed. But he might as well try all avenues, I suppose.) From this bit of evidence, Frank and Joe decide Daggett is guilty of the attempted murder of Karen. Daggett sends an arrested criminal to threaten the boys, promising him leniency for thuggery against the brothers, but it backfires, because no one can intimidate the Hardys. In a bit of courtroom drama, Frank tries to produce a Perry Mason moment from the witness box, claiming that an unidentified piece of evidence is part of Daggett’s crappy enamel ring — just like the one that Frank bought Callie! — which broke during Daggett’s attack.

The gallery goes wild. The judge dismisses the case, which would be unusual if this were the real world, and Nick is freed to keep foisting his emotional neediness upon Karen; Karen apologizes for thinking this guy who just couldn’t let their relationship go might have attacked her. Apologizes! And then she’s forced to celebrate with Nick, Nellie, and their lawyer! Poor Karen.

Now, there are a few problems with the justice system that this Dixon glosses over. The prosecutor introduces information that an objection overrules; the jury is supposed to forget the information, but that’s impossible for a human to do. Also, a crime-lab technician identifies the hairs found in a ski mask found Nick’s apartment and testifies they are Nick’s; although he initially prefaces his testimony with “in my opinion,” he later says hair samples “can be matched with almost as much accuracy as fingerprints” (10) and that the odds that the samples aren’t Nick’s are “a million to one” (11). Although DNA can be found in some hair samples, that’s not what the lab technician is saying; he’s saying when he looks at the hair in a microscope, he can visually compare and match them with precision accuracy, and that’s just not true. (To be fair to these fictional lawyers and the fictional lab tech, that sort of forensic overstatement goes on all the time in courtrooms, and it passes unchallenged.)

The important thing, in the end, is that Joe realizes how important it is that everyone gets “the best possible defense” (118). Why is this? Because at different points during their investigation, Joe thought every suspect was guilty, and their investigation proved not everyone wanted to kill Karen Lee.

But remember: In Joe’s eyes, they are all guilty of something. We are all guilty in his eyes. Someday, Joe won’t be satisfied with punishing the guilty in just Bayport. He will convince more and more citizens to outsource the dispensing of justice to him, until the entire country — the entire world — will be forced to grovel and pray for a merciful Joe.

Carnival of Crime (#122)

So, a carnival of crime, you say …

The Hardys have danced all around the entertainment-industrial complex, but I don’t think they’ve investigated a carnival before. Automobile stunt shows in Fear on Wheels (#108), the circus in Three-Ring Terror (#111), a demolition derby in The Demolition Mission (#112), an amusement park in Danger in the Fourth Dimension (#118), and a Renaissance faire in Crusade of the Flaming Sword (#131), but not a carnival. Admittedly, the Hardys had worked for a carnival in the original Clue of the Broken Blade (#21), and Chet worked for Solo’s Super Carnival in The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo (#47), but no Dixon working on the digests remembers those hardback books. Also, there’s a winter festival in The Cold Cash Caper (#136), but that’s later in the series, and a winter festival has a whole different set of crimesolving issues.

You might not be able to guess the plot of Carnival of Crime from the title alone. The name suggests the carnival is propagating the crime, like Marvel’s Circus of Crime. (A Ringmaster with a hypnotic top hat would be completely optional.) Instead, it’s Hardy Boys Digest stock plot 1b, in which a business is in trouble because of “accidents” that look like sabotage but might not be (but totally are, because this is a Hardy Boys story). Once you know that, the story pretty much tells itself: a standard Reprobate Roll Call (I’ll get to that later), a crooked carnival game, and set pieces in the Tunnel of Love, Fun House, and Mirror Maze. You’re smart; you could’ve thought of this, although you might have had the sabotaged ride be the more exciting roller coaster rather than the Ferris wheel, and you might have laughed at your editor when he suggested a dangerous bumper car attack instead of dutifully trying to put menace into the least menacing attraction at a carnival. (I mean, even the “Guess Your Weight” guy can have an element of fat shaming to his attraction.) But that’s you; you’re principled, and you know what works.

I mean, a carny yells, “Hey, Rube,” at one point to set other carnies against the Hardys. It’s that sort of by-the-numbers book. I’m not saying you could’ve done better; I don’t know the quality of your prose and transitions. But with a professional editor, I’m not going to say you’d do worse.

So, as to the story itself: After Frank and Joe “just finished that business of the mine fires over in Pennsylvania” (35), the operator of Fairs to Go, Susan Bowman, calls the younger Hardys to investigate problems at the carnival, having heard of the Hardys through an unnamed friend. This “friend,” of course, is probably someone on the carny circuit who passes around the names of people who work for free. Fairs to Go is hemorrhaging money and Susan is a teenager who just took over the carnival because of her father’s heart attack, so it’s not like she has many options to combat the alleged sabotage. The Hardys do work for free, but they don’t bother to return Susan’s call; instead, without knowing who Susan is or what she does, they randomly run into Susan when they attend the Bayport Fair, which Fairs to Go is working.

Despite their being the same ages, Susan has to ignore Joe’s skepticism that she’s responsible enough for the job; Joe is unacquainted with responsibility, as being a teen detective is a pastime that carries no responsibility, not even the responsibility to not cause harm to your client’s interests or to take normal efforts to preserve your own life. But that seems like a small price for Susan to pay. In Joe’s defense, Susan claims to be “carny born and bred” (29), an unfortunate turn of phrase which calls to mind unsavory and probably unethical breeding practices involving sideshow performers, and she completely botches any chance Frank and Joe have to keep up their cover identities. Not that their cover identities — students writing a term paper about the carnival business, in this case — would ever fool anyone, let alone a group as legendarily suspicious of outsiders as carnies, but there are forms to be observed, you know? Just like we all pretend corporations are responsible citizens and ignore their rapacious need for profit — until we’re absolutely forced to stop ignoring it.

So who is sabotaging Fairs to Go? Here’s the Reprobate Roll Call:

• Ricky Delgado, Susan’s stepbrother. A business school dropout, Ricky thinks he should be running Fairs to Go. He has two goons, Boomer and Kenny. (I had to look up Kenny’s name because I keep wanting to call him “Esiason.”) Ricky and his goons confront Frank and Joe a time or two; during one confrontation, Joe gets offended when Ricky calls them “boy detectives” (45), a totally accurate description of the Hardy boys, and “turkeys” (67). Later, Frank discovers Ricky is shaking down the booth operators, building a “war chest” that will allow him to revitalize the carnival after he ousts his stepsister in a putsch. (He doesn’t say he plans to have Susan assassinated in her Mexico City exile, but honestly, he doesn’t have to: That’s implied. History has shown us that’s the inevitable course of carnival power struggles. Or is it Communist power struggles? I get confused sometimes. The one with more clowns.)
  
  
• Raoul Duchemin, former Fairs to Go strongman. Injuries have reduced Raoul to a general laborer, but Raoul is unhappy because carnival show business is the only business he knows. He’s also a moron, but there’s no evidence that that makes him unhappy. He has a “crush” (33) on Althea, the Ferris wheel operator, and he glowers at any man who looks twice at her. That was probably supposed to be a menacing (to the Hardys) plot point in 1993, when Carnival was published, but a quarter century has made his attempts to control the romantic life of a woman who has no interest in him into something incredibly creepy.
  
  
• Cecil Farkas, who runs the shooting-gallery game. Frank and Joe expose his rigged game almost as soon as they enter the carnival — he feeds chipped BBs into the rifle, making it almost impossible to hit the target, so I learned something about gaffed games — and of course he’s going to hold a grudge after Susan gives him his walking papers.
  
  
• The four Fratelli Brothers, a clown family. They are almost always in character, which means “amusing” disinterested people who just wish they’d go away. I don’t think I need to say more than that, really.
  
  
• Mystery culprit.

Since Ricky is too obvious a villain, you will be unsurprised to learn that “mystery culprit” is the winner of the Hardy Detecting Sweepstakes. (For those of you who were wagering, Mystery Culprit pays $25 to win, $10 to show, $3 to place.) This Dixon does give the mystery a twist by having Ricky’s goons betray him to work with Morris Tuttle, Susan’s father's partner / business manager. Tuttle had been cooking the books for years, and to conceal his crime, he was sabotaging the business and siphoning money from Fairs to Go to pressure Susan into selling her family’s interest. He also put a hose through his office window to destroy the business’s computer and claimed he had no backups. (Of course he had backups; of course the boys find the “diskettes,” which is perhaps the most ‘90s thing about this book.)

Given that the villain is a middle-aged guy who projects an aura of benign concern throughout, how is the menace delivered in Carnival? Joe avoids the deadly threat of the aforementioned bumper car attack. When the Ferris wheel is stopped, Joe momentarily slips out of his gondola to try to prevent a young boy, whose lap bar didn’t lock, from winning a Darwin Award, but he fails at the rescue attempt, never reaching the child, and has to leap back in his own gondola. (The kid didn't really need rescuing, so the three-page “action” sequence was pointless.) One of Ricky’s goons attacks Frank in the Fun House; Frank defends himself, but he doesn’t use his “well-honed martial arts instincts” (143) until they’re needed to capture the culprits at the end of the book. Boomer shoots a Roman candle in the Tunnel of Love at Frank and Althea —

No, it’s not like that. You know it’s not like that. Frank would never canoodle with a girl other than Callie. Althea suggested the Tunnel of Love as a place to privately discuss Ricky’s perfidy. (The attack works, frightening her into silence.) However, Joe would totally take a girl other than Iola into the Tunnel of Love, and Iola’s reaction would have given the book a believably terrifying element.

In the final move by the villains, Joe gets sapped while investigating Kenny and Boomer’s trailer. (Joe’s rationale for the B&E? “Uninvited visits always pay off,” he thinks as he picks their lock [106].) The villains dump him in the Mirror Maze with an unconscious Ricky, then set the maze is set on fire. It’s not a bad plan, as far as it goes; Frank and Joe were suspicious of Ricky, and the bound Joe next to Ricky might have given investigators the idea that Ricky had abducted Joe and both had been the victim of an accident. I don’t think any real investigator would believe that — it’s too convenient — but this is Bayport. I can’t imagine the Bayport Police Department has a great reputation, given how much of its work it outsources to teenage boys.

On the other hand, angering the Great and Powerful Fenton Hardy by harming / killing one of his sons seems less like tempting fate and more like demanding one’s own destruction from an angry and powerful god.

*****

Usually, this is where I’d end this post, but this Dixon makes a major misstep I have to talk about.

When you’re dealing with circuses and carnivals, you have clowns. It’s difficult get rid of them, and no matter how much you spray or put out traps, the best you’re likely to do is drive them into a neighbor’s property until that neighbor drives them back. But given the near-mandated presence of clowns, a writer should use creepy clowns, a reliable threat that readers and protagonists will respond to. Even though this Dixon doesn’t want to lean into the shifty reputation many carnies have — Susan calls them “friendly, honest people,” even though carnivals “attract a few crooks” (30) — you can’t cover clowns’ inherent creepiness, no matter how much clown white you use. Early in the book, Dixon uses that creepiness as a plot point, when Joe sees a clown through the Hardys’ kitchen window: “a ghostly white face with exaggerated, brightly colored features. It’s huge red lips were fixed in a demonic grin. … a clown from a horror film” (35).

That’s a solid hook, and it would be genuinely frightening if that clown kept popping up, leering at the boys and doing something violent or frightening. In this case, the clown lures Joe into an IED: a firework under a metal can, triggered by a tripwire. No one is hurt, and the bomb — powerful enough to toss Joe “into the air like a dead leaf” — is accompanied by a threatening note with a pun. Con Riley and the police show up, but they cede their authority to Frank and Joe. The boys, showing their usual legal acumen, hold on to the evidence (for no real reason) and decline to press charges (because vigilante justice is the best justice — who needs the authorities mucking things up?).

The horror clown plotline is mostly forgotten, though — Frank glimpses the clown later in the book, and Joe finds clown white in Boomer and Kenny’s trailer. Other than that, the brief promise of something genuinely frightening without being too kid-unfriendly is forgotten.