The Mystery in the Old Mine is an old-school title, but it is not an old-school plot. It could be, if it tried, but I think someone decided, “Eh, let’s not get too ambitious here.”
The story begins in Bayport, where Frank and Joe’s weightlifting buddy, Garth Trimmer, has them look into his trashed apartment. Frank and Joe, according to the book, lift seriously in a downtown gym between cases only, but Garth is a mountain of a young man (250 pounds of “solid muscle”), developing the kind of body you only get when you’re constantly reminded you have been named “Garth” by people who ostensibly loved you. Anyway, the only clue Frank and Joe find in Garth’s apartment is a few orange dog hairs, which they are sure were left by the vandal and not left by the apartment’s previous resident.
Soon Garth gets a letter telling him his sister, Liz, has been kidnapped. Her abductors ask for a notebook in exchange for Liz. Which notebook? Nobody knows. Since Liz sent Garth some books recently, the boys surmise the notebook is with those, but they find no trace of it. Their best plan, the boys decide, is to bluff the kidnapper; they inform the sheriff of Ridge City, Penn., where the handoff is supposed to take place, and hope the police can catch the kidnapper.
Despite his friend’s anguish, Joe enjoys the situation: “It was exciting to be on a case again” (13). Heaven protect me from friends like Joe. And from ones like Frank, too: Although they will reach Ridge City with little time to spare if things go right, Frank sets the cruise control to 55 when they reach the open highway. Remember when the speed limit everywhere was 55? Man, that was a long time ago, and no one went 55 then, either. The three boys reach Ridge City in time, but the kidnapper slips the trap, in part because the deputies assigned to capture him are set up in the wrong place and mistake the boys for the kidnappers.
The trip out to Pennsylvania illustrates a key area that Franklin W. Dixons need to be good at but frequently aren’t: friendly banter. In Rock ‘n’ Roll Revenge (#116), Frank, Joe and Chet give each other good-natured ribbing that feels right for teenage boys (albeit in a PG sort of way). But this Dixon can’t get the hang of banter, with Garth and the Hardys spouting nonsensical non-sequiturs in the guise of amusing badinage. C’mon — you have to try harder than Joe saying, “Hey, hold on” and “punching Garth on the shoulder” (15) after Garth’s poor attempt to burn Frank and Joe.
Ridge City, which is located in the center of the state according to Garth, is a stand-in for the real-life coal-mining town of Centralia, Penn. In both towns, a seam of coal caught on fire, and as a result, the ground under the town is burning. Centralia’s coal deposits caught on fire in 1962, although the dangers of the underground fires didn’t become apparent until almost two decades later. In 1980, Centralia’s population was 1,017, down from 1,435 just before the fires in 1960; by 1990, after the state bought out and relocated most of the town, Centralia’s population was 63. Pennsylvania’s governor declared eminent domain on the town in 1992, although court cases delayed that declaration. Today just 10 people live in Centralia; as a result of their court battles with the state, they received about $350,000 and the right to stay in Centralia until they died. The state will take the land when they do.
Ridge City is in an early stage of that dissolution. The coal fire has been burning for less time, but the town is dying, and the government — it’s never declared whether it’s state, county, or federal — is planning to buy out the residents (or maybe just compensate them) and close down the nuclear plant. Why the coal region has a nuclear plant isn’t explained; perhaps the town was embracing its own obsolescence even before the coal fire. The government has made a proposal to the town, and even though the mayor is in favor of it, Liz believes the people deserve more. This has made her unpopular with the local power structure — such as it is — and gives the boys no shortage of suspects for her disappearance.
The person who should be at the top of their list is David Handler, Liz’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. He is so perfect for the role of suspect it is baffling that Frank rejects Handler as suspect so absolutely. Were we as a nation that naïve in 1993, that we wouldn’t think to immediately look at the guy who had broken up with a missing girl multiple times? Or is Frank just stupid? I’m thinking the latter, but I don't remember 1993 as well as I used to. For his part, Garth vouches for Handler, but he also thinks central Pennsylvania is “outside of Pittsburgh” (46), so maybe his perspective is skewed.
Still, Frank authorizes an investigatory B&E at Handler’s home. They find a golden retriever, whose fur roughly matches the hairs found in Garth’s apartment, and letters from Handler to Liz. One of them says, “You make me want to kill you sometimes, Liz Trimmer, as much as I love you” (66). This is deeply disturbing, and whether he did anything Liz, his protestations that he loves her should be viewed with a great deal of skepticism. In fact, if Garth doesn’t tell his sister to stay far away from Handler, he’s not a very good sibling.
Eventually, the boys discover Liz wasn’t kidnapped; she disappeared to investigate some shenanigans going on in Ridge City, hoping to get the residents a larger government payout. Oh, yeah, and justice, I suppose. Can’t forget the justice. Or “justice.” The “kidnapper,” as it turns out, was using Liz’s disappearance to get some sort of evidence she had gathered.
Liz worked at the local nuclear power plant, which is having unreported accidents. (Frank and Joe are no strangers to nuclear power plant problems; they were at the Bayridge Nuclear Power Plant during an accident — an earthquake, specifically — in The Infinity Clue [#70].) The boys think it’s plausible that Liz was investigating the plant, especially when the head of the plant and technicians give them the brushoff while they’re dealing with the accident. (I wouldn’t want a bunch of teenagers around while I repaired a malfunction at a nuclear plant.)
The search for Liz turns to the abandoned mine tunnels beneath Ridge City. It’s a crime it takes more than half the book to get to them; I can’t imagine a more atmospheric and dangerous environment for the Hardys to investigate. A mine is a dirty, dangerous place, but this book doesn’t take advantage of it in the way that the early Hardy Boys book would have. When the boys are down there, they don’t suffer from the noxious gasses that should be released by the burning fire, and their only real difficulty is when a wall falls on Joe. Rescue crews dig him out without much trouble, and when he realizes Joe is safe, Garth “let out a howl of relief” (93). I’m having trouble figuring out what that would sound like; at the moment, I’m leaning toward a cross between a wolf howl and a sigh.
No closer to finding Liz or her fake kidnapper, Joe briefly suspects Ridge City’s mayor, who wants to accept the current government payoff and considers Liz an annoyance. Her big-city wardrobe and coiffure makes his detective sense twitch: “He observed … her neat suit and her perfectly styled hair. Could she be ambitious enough to have threatened Liz?” (101). Since she has no real power, she’s eventually rejected.
Frank is annoyed by the sheriff, who wants to briefly stop searching the mine tunnels for Liz because of things like “rest,” “food,” and “safety.” The sheriff invites Garth and the Hardys to look for themselves. While they are down in the mine, they are almost run over by a mine train. They suspect Handler, but when they catch up with him, he provides a note from Liz telling him she was going to vanish. Later, through the power of luck, instilled in him through the Fentonian mysteries, Joe finds barrels of hazardous waste. The kids and Handler walk away from the barrels that night, presumably whistling, figuring the police have probably closed for the night. By the time Frank and Joe come back the next morning, with the promise of FBI agents to follow, almost all of the barrels are gone.
Luckily, they find Liz. Unluckily, the villains — the sheriff, the head of the nuclear plant, and most importantly, their guns — find Liz and the Hardys. Frank is clubbed unconscious, then he, Joe, and Liz are tied to the train and aimed at the underground fire. Fortunately, they free themselves and stop the train before they crash, or burn, or succumb to carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide poisoning. They reverse the train and quickly run down (not literally) the villains, who have forgotten they had weapons.
All is set right! Somehow, the hazardous waste dumping has made the unlivable Ridge City even more unlivable, so the people of Ridge City will get a bigger payout. I would have thought that subsidence and poisonous gasses from an underground fire would be enough to total the real estate, but what do I know? Liz got more money from the federal government, although that’s according to the nuclear regulator who was shocked — shocked! — at the malfeasance at the plant. Of course she’s going to say Ridge City is going to get more money.
That will make the people of Ridge City happy, giving her more time to get to a country without an extradition treaty before the head of the nuclear plant swears there’s no way he could have dumped hazardous waste without the regulator’s help.
