Radical Moves (#113)

You know, Chet gets laughed at for his numerous hobbies, but no one says anything about all the avocations Frank and Joe pick up for a mystery and then never refer to again.

Take, for instance, Radical Moves. Frank and Joe start skateboarding; Joe, in particular, is pretty good at it. Will this be referred to again? No. No, it will not. Just like Joe playing video games in Attack of the Video Villains (#106) and both brothers firefighting in The Smoke Screen Mystery (#105), skateboarding will be forgotten. And how many hobbies has Chet had in that same eight-book period? Two, if you count his attempts to win a costume contest in The Secret of Sigma Seven (#110). Well, three, if you count him playing video games with Frank and Joe in Attack of the Video Villains, but frankly, Chet didn’t expend enough enthusiasm for the video games or the costume contest to qualify, and in neither case was he completely blind to his incompetence.

So Radical Moves is based on the idea that Frank and Joe are skateboarders now, and Joe’s pretty good. The narrator explains skateboarding to the readers, often using Frank’s thoughts, and yes, it sounds exactly like a middle-aged guy explaining the latest hip youth craze to aliens. By page 40, I was thoroughly sick of the word “thrash” and all its variations, and I despaired that I still had more than 100 thrashin’ pages left to go.

While at the Bayport skatepark a few days ahead of the Bayport (*ugh*) Thrashathon, the Hardy brothers meet Zach “the Hawk” Michaels, whom Joe immediately recognizes as a great professional skateboarder. Frank embarrasses himself by asking about skater lingo (“Hey, just what is a thrasher, anyway?” [3]), and Joe embarrasses himself with his adulation of the Hawk. Zach emulates the Hardys’ stilted speech, and I’m sure he’s making fun of them without them knowing it. But after Frank and Joe foil an attempt by a motorcyclist all in black to steal Zach’s skateboard, Zach decides they’re all right and takes them up on their offer to investigate the attack, even if he’s not willing to tell Frank and Joe about his past.

If you’re wondering: By the time this book was published in 1992, Tony Hawk had been a professional skater for a decade, and he’d been winning championships for almost that entire time. (We have always had Tony Hawk with us.) That’s obviously what the author is referencing with the “Hawk” nickname; when Zach performs a “pop off” — going up over the edge of a half-pipe, then descending — Frank “could see why his nickname was ‘Hawk’” (9). Given that actual hawks can get quite a bit higher (Frank doesn’t seem all that impressed by Zach’s altitude) and aren’t that good at skateboarding, I have to think it’s a reference to Tony.

Zach introduces Frank and Joe to the skateboarding world gathering in Bayport: Rick “Rocket” Torrez, a competitor who is Zach’s ex-best friend; Barb Myers, who sponsors Rocket, used to sponsor Zach, and now doesn’t like Zach very much; Maggie Barnes, a skateboarding reporter “on cable” (18; Joe repeats “on cable” throughout the book, as if skateboarding is equally likely to be found on C-SPAN, The Nashville Network, or ESPN); rival Danny Hayashi, who Zach says “leaves a bad taste in my mouth” (28; I just bet he does, wink wink nudge nudge); and Chris Hall, president of Scorpion Boards and Danny’s sponsor.

Zach is evasive about the root of his bad blood with Barb, Rocket, and Danny, and he won’t tell the brothers about secret deals he’s making with skateboarding companies. Frank and Joe find this extremely suspicious, although why should he trust Frank and Joe with intimate details of his personal life? And why would he divulge information about deals that could net him a fortune? (He eventually tells the brothers about his plans to sell his skateboard design to Hall, and Frank blabs it to Rocket like a total Chet.)

The attacks / attempted thefts keep coming. At Zach’s house, the mysterious motorcyclist pushes Zach into an empty pool, then drives off with Zach’s board; in the ensuing chase, Joe tries to run him off the road — total villain behavior from Joe — and the motorcyclist tries the half Ghost Rider, swinging a chain at the Hardys van. (Not a flaming chain, unfortunately.) The chase ends in the Bayport Mall parking lot when the motorcyclist takes a spill going around a delivery van. The rider beats up Frank and Joe but loses the board before he flees. The motorcycle is stolen, which closes up the lead the Hardys bade Lt. Con Riley to follow up on. While the Hardys and Zach were chasing the thief, Zach’s workshop is trashed.

Zach eventually reveals his secrets. Rocket hates him because they used to work together, but Zach robbed the place for skateboard components, and Rocket was fired; Zach then quit Myers’s team out of guilt, which caused Myers to hate him. Zach apologizes to Rocket and says he’ll get Rocket’s job back, even pay back their former employer, but he doesn’t admit he stole Rocket’s idea for a skateboard. (He does say he’ll split the profits 50/50, though, after Frank spills the beans.)

Frank and Joe are left home alone for the second straight mystery; this time the adults are on vacation. It’s a good thing, though, because someone turns on the gas in the Hardy home to … discourage Frank and Joe? No, it seems more likely that someone was trying to kill them, since they were asleep when the gas was turned on and no vague threat was issued, as the villains so often do. Frank and Joe are not concerned, though. I mean, they survived, after all, and the house didn’t explode. Why should they care?

Well, perhaps because Joe at least is left with a “fuzzy feeling and … [a] throbbing at his temples” (77) the next morning. That suggests there might be lingering effects they might want to get checked out, but whatever — that’s not the Hardy way. Frank uses the gas as the reason he laughs at Joe’s suggestion that someone is watching Zach’s home from the vacant house across the street. Joe’s right, though, and they find food wrappers and a cup with lipstick on it when they finally investigate. Immediately Myers becomes a suspect. Frank and Joe even let the police know about the break-in … eventually. But they don’t visit Riley to tell him what’s going on; they don’t want to get caught up in his “questioning” and “investigating” and “documentation.” The Hardys have to be free to fly and “carve large” (78), just like the Hawk, dude!

Later, Zach cracks his shoulder after someone pours silicon lubricant at the bottom of the pool he uses for skateboarding practice. Zach asks Joe to compete in his place, but after another failed attempt to steal Zach’s board, the Hardys, Zach, and Rocket construct a decoy board. Frank cannibalizes “an old shortwave radio that had been gathering dust in a closet” [116] for some of the board's tracking components, in case you wondered what had happened to their shortwave sets.) They let the board be stolen and follow the thief to the Bayport Arms Hotel, and they hear the thief’s first name — Danny — before the tracker and bug are destroyed.

After they figure out who the thief is, Frank and Joe are stumped at what to do next. Although it’s true that they might not have much evidence against Danny, they have two weapons in their arsenal they never use, despite how effective they would be: they could accuse Danny of the many crimes that went along with his mugging attempts (fleeing the scene of an accident, assault and battery, and attempted murder), and they could call upon the Bayport Police Department to use its full majesty and authority against him. I mean, this guy attempted to gas Frank and Joe to death! He’s more than a petty thief or even an industrial spy — he’s a menace! Well, really, it was his employer who broke into the Hardy home, but they could still say that unless Danny gave up his boss, Danny was the one who is going to go to jail.

While Joe competes, Frank uses library resources to discover Myers’s company is in great shape, so she could pay for Zach’s board design if she wanted. Hall’s company, however, is about to go under, so he probably couldn’t pay Zach anything, despite what Hall promised Zach. Frank is so excited by this discovery he “almost [forgot] to return the volume … to the periodical room” (136). My God, Frank — you’re a library-science monster!

At the skateboard competition, Joe battles Danny, but Danny uses his board to knock Joe down. Danny is DQed, and Frank recommends Danny be arrested while he investigates Hall. Frank picks the lock on the back of Hall’s truck and finds lockpicks, silicon lubricants, and a black motorcycle riding costume. Hall smacks Frank upside the head and drives away, but Frank rallies the skateboarding community, who pursue Hall. Joe and Rick grab onto the back of Hall’s truck — bad example for the kids! — before vaulting onto the back of the truck. Frank, following on a borrowed board, chases down Hall when he abandons his truck.

Oh, that lipstick on the coffee cup? Total red herring. Myers previously dated Hall and hoped to be cut in on his new skateboard deal (or theft). So … she watched Zach’s place from the vacant house with Hall, witnessing his attempted larceny, vandalism, and bodily harm? Geez. And she gets away scot-free, despite her horrible morals.

The bad guys are arrested; Zach gets Rocket his job back and convinces his old employer to produce his radical board design. Joe, despite his high-intensity training with Hawk and relatively good showing at the *sigh* Thrashathon, decides to give up skateboarding and thrashing.

Thank Odin for that, at least.

The Secret of Sigma Seven (#110)

The title for #110 is The Secret of Sigma Seven, which in the book is also the title of a movie stolen from a Hollywood director. But the story might as well be Frank and Joe Go to a Science Fiction Convention.

After Frank and Joe mock Chet’s attempts at cosplay (although they don’t call it that — the term hadn't been popularized in America yet), the boys meet Brian Amchick, a guy from Frank’s trigonometry class, at the convention. Frank deigns to remember one of the little guys who flit through his life, and Brian agrees to introduce Frank, Joe, and Chet to the ins-and-outs of science fiction conventions and their terminology.

BayCon is being held at the Bayport Inn, which has showed up when Chet worked there in Spark of Suspicion (#98). No one brings up Chet’s previous employment in this book, though. Chet is excited about BayCon’s costume party because the prize for the best costume is “a trip to Florida to watch a space shuttle launch” (2). That’s a nice prize, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal to Chet since he HAS BEEN TO SPACE in a space shuttle.

Let me repeat that: he, along with Frank and Joe, have been in space. They were able to go in The Skyfire Puzzle (#85), the last digest before the year-long hiatus of 1986. But no one mentions this; no one even remembers it either. Joe even says, “Maybe the shuttle will take you along. Then you can become a real space cadet” (3).

Putting aside the undeserved nature of Joe’s putdown, why does no one remember the chums going into space? If I had gone into space, I would never stop talking about it. I’m loath to hold up The Big Bang Theory as any indication of reality, but after engineer Howard Wolowitz traveled to the International Space Station in that series, he didn’t shut up about it. Chet would be like that.

Frank and Joe aren’t there for the costume party, though. They have come to BayCon to see The Secret of Sigma Seven, the fifth movie in a sci-fi epic. Sigma Seven is scheduled to make its debut at the convention, and the movie’s director, Simon Devoreaux, has even come with the movie, to give it a brief introduction and serve on a few panels. Frank, Joe, and Chet have enjoyed the previous four installments of the film franchise, and they can’t wait for #5. They end up disappointed, however, as the print of the film that was to be shown at BayCon is stolen before it can be screened.

Frank and Joe decide they aren’t going to investigate unless Devoreaux asks them to, and he’s not interested in talking to them at all. Fortunately for Frank and Joe, Linda Klein, the convention’s organizer, wants them to find the film, so they agree —

Wait. Why is it fortunate for them? They aren’t getting paid, and the person who would benefit the most has no interest in them. Before Klein asks for their help, Frank says, “Maybe we’d better leave this for the Bayport police” (15). He’s right! Well, he would be right, if the Bayport Police could be bothered to do anything, but they don’t appear in the book. In the 21st century, the FBI would probably be called in, either because of the movie studio’s clout or because of copyright infringement concerns, but we don’t see them either. The field is clear for Frank and Joe!

They get their first suspect: someone roaming around Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con wearing different costumes but the same green medallion. Why keep wearing something that identifies him, when he’s in disguise? The answer: He didn’t think it would matter. The suspect tries to kill Devereaux by giving a real but fake-looking gun to a con-goer and telling him to shoot at Devereaux; he almost tricks Joe into falling down an elevator shaft as well. The suspect seemingly aims a driverless hovercar at Sigma Seven’s special effects director, Jack Gillis. Gillis tells Chet he has no plans to mass produce the hovercars because he’s “already rich” [39]. If that’s not a reason to suspect him of something, I don’t know what is.

Added March 2026: The name "Jack Gillis" is almost certainly a reference to Jackson Gillis, the screenwriter who wrote the first two Hardy Boys TV adaptations, 1956's The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure, which adapted The Tower Treasure, and 1957's original The Mystery of the Ghost Farm. The two aired as serials in episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club. Gillis's career lasted long past the Hardy Boys, as he wrote episodes of TV shows like Lost in Space, The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, Wonder Woman, Knight Rider, Murder, She Wrote, and many more. He passed away in 2010, two days before his 94th birthday.

Back to the story: Frank and Joe wend their way through the convention, accumulating a meager pile of suspects. Acerbic writer Richard Feinbetter hates Devoreaux because he believes Devoreaux’s movies ripped off one of his stories. Feinbetter’s friend, fellow author Arlen Hennessey, hates Devoreaux’s movies in an artistic sense, but he too believes Devoreaux ripped off Feinbetter. The brothers also suspect George Morwood, a “huckster,” as Brian says, who sells video cassettes of movies at the con. He seems shady, and since the Hardys suspect the movie was stolen for the bootleg market, they keep an eye on him. (The author does nail how surly dealers at cons can be, almost like they are reluctant to sell stuff to you.)

I don’t have a suspect for who Hennessey is supposed to represent, but Feinbetter sounds like Harlan Ellison, a cantankerous sci-fi writer who has a propensity for suing those he thinks have wronged him or stolen his intellectual property. (The name "Arlen Hennessey" sounds more like Harlen Ellison, though.) Ellison has claimed the TV show Future Cop and the movie The Terminator were based on his works, and he won damages in those suits. He sued over the movie In Time but later withdrew the suit. He has been involved in numerous other lawsuits and has been extremely critical of how others, like Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, have treated his scripts.

The fit isn’t exact, though; Feinbetter is a writer from the Golden Age, back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, while Ellison is recognized as part of the vanguard of the ‘60s New Wave. Also, the story Devoreaux is alleged to have stolen from him involves “the Federation of Worlds series of novels”; Ellison has written few novels, and the Foundation / Empire series of Isaac Asimov seems more likely what was being referred to. Of course, “Federation” also calls to mind Star Trek, but that existed as a TV show before it engulfed all media forms.

Also: Feinbetter shoots Frank, Joe, and Brian with a gag gun with a flag that says, “ZAP! You’re star dust!” (55), which I bet Ellison would not do.

Frank and Joe’s detective ethic is less than sterling. They go to lunch without Chet after agreeing to rendezvous with him before the meal, and they don’t even remember him until after they pay the check. Fortunately, Chet’s not in danger; he’s just buying a new costume. After lunch and a panel session, they decide to “take a few minutes off” (65) and visit a sci-fi prop exhibit. When they break into Morwood’s hotel room, they don’t even use their lockpicks: they use a Swiss army knife. In an attempt to get more investigation opportunities, they stay at the Bayport Inn overnight and are introduced to another con tradition by Brian: sleeping on a hotel room floor. (Brian also says staying awake for the con’s full 72 hours is also a tradition; he’s right about both.) Frank and Joe, who are apparently middle-aged, have a rough time sleeping on the floor; Joe even falls asleep during surveillance the next day. (And almost gets stepped on by an elephant, but that’s not important.) With time running out to find the film on the last day of the con, Frank and Joe decide to take a break and watch a movie.

Still, the boys have a high opinion of themselves; Frank says they can perform miracles, although perhaps not on schedule.

After a spear is tossed at Frank, both boys being threatened by a motorcycle gang (not the Flying Skulls from Fear on Wheels, though), and two attempts on Devoreaux’s life, the brothers figure out who did it: Gillis. They aren’t sure why until the FX man tells them he resented Devoreaux; the idea for the movie series was Gillis’s, but Devoreaux relegated him to special-effects director. Gillis paintballs Frank and Joe in the face, which is hilarious to me but should have been painful to Frank and Joe, before fleeing in a hovercar. They recover quickly and pursue Gillis on a low-speed chase in a hovercraft of their own; both vehicles eventually go over the Barmet Cliffs. Somehow, the hovercrafts’ fans take them from terminal velocity to floating on water, and the chase ends when Gillis’s hovercraft is run over by a motorboat.

Brian is impressed by Frank and Joe’s detective work, which Joe claims was, like usual, fueled by “logical thinking and a few brilliant deductions”; Chet cuts him down by saying, “I thought it was usually dumb luck” (147). Joe gets him back on the book’s exit line, though, when Klein insinuates Chet’s about to eat the convention into a financial loss. “‘Chet cut down on his eating?” Joe said with a grin. ‘Now, that’s science fiction!’” (149). I admit: I laughed.