The Rocky Road to Revenge (#151)

My first disappointment with The Rocky Road to Revenge is that it contains no revenge. I admit: The title is a good one, but it doesn’t fit the story. The only attempt “revenge” in the story is a botched extortion scheme that ends up with the blackmailer abducted and nearly murdered.

The second disappointment is that Rocky Road is a clear attempt to cash in on the X-Files craze in the late ‘90s, yet nothing about the title or front cover gives any indication of that. It’s a waste, even if the back cover copy does try to get the UFO angle in the book across … although even the back cover botches the details, as the second paragraph starts, “It begins with a strange green light in the sky.” No, the book clearly says it’s an orange light: “The color reminded Joe of a Halloween pumpkin” (7).

The mystery involves abductions in Colorado, where Frank and Joe are spending part of the summer with a classmate, Terry Taylor, who is working at a resort. (I don’t think many parents who would allow their teenage sons to visit a classmate of the opposite sex more than halfway across the country without adult supervision, but we know Laura and Fenton trust / have abandoned all responsibility for Frank and Joe.) Rocky Road pushes the theory that the victims were taken by aliens, linking the disappearances with the bright orange light seen in the Colorado skies during the first chapter.

Rocky Road hits most of the highlights of UFOs and UFO abduction that any X-Files fan would know: electrical failures, lost time and fuzzy memories of the abduction, abandoned vehicles on deserted roads, bright lights. Frank and Joe debate the alien-abduction theory, with lunkhead Joe pushing the idea, and Frank batting it aside. Disappointingly, the experts they talk to don’t hit some of the points real experts on UFOlogy would; Rocky Road doesn’t mention the “Wow!” signal when discussing evidence of alien life gathered by radio telescopes, no one mentions the words “panspermia” or “Fermi paradox” (although Joe describes both ideas to bolster his claims), and the word “probe” is never once mentioned in relation to alien abductions.

The final disappointment is that Rocky Road plays the alien angle too straight. This is a Hardy Boys book, not a serious novel, and no one should expect a Hardy Boys book to be rooted in strict reality. I wanted a winking acknowledgement that the orange light or the mysterious night hobo who always wore sunglasses had something alien about them; I wanted Alex Trebek as a man in black. Instead, Rocky Road drops both the light and drifter, referencing the light on the final page in the same way the original Disappearing Floor (#19) picked up the mystery of its beginning pages, ending with the boys promising to find Harry Tanwick.

*****

After the orange light in the sky gets the attention of the Hardys, Terry, and everyone else at the Silver Crest resort and the nearby town of Parnassa, Colo., the Silver Crest’s owner, Clay Robinson, disappears, his jeep abandoned on the side of a lonely road. Local UFOlogist (and former SETI scientist) Alistair Sykes takes down eyewitness accounts of the lights, exposits the basics of UFOlogy to the Hardys, and plays up Robinson’s disappearance as a possible alien abduction to the local press (such as it is). Soon after, though, Sykes vanishes as well, and that means it’s time for a Reprobate Roll Call:

1. Myra Hart and Bev Kominski, two former employees of Silver Crest and “drifters” (12). Robinson fired them for stealing from his office, and the two bear a grudge against him (and Terry, who reported seeing them exit Robinson’s office at the time of the theft). After denying the theft through most of the book, Myra and Beverly eventually claim they were only getting compensation for overtime Robinson declined to pay them. They also have no regard for anyone’s personal safety; they puncture a raft so that it will cause problems in the middle of the rapids, and while riding bicycles, they swing wide on a blind curve, causing Frank to either plow into them or drive off the cliff. (He uses his amazing driving ability to put Robinson’s jeep into a controlled sideways skid instead.) Myra also strands Joe and Terry on a ski lift for a while.
   
   
2. Max Jagowitz, general store owner and local crank. Jagowitz is opposed to Robinson’s plan to create a ski resort called the Golden Dream. As a member of the local council, he’s steamed that Robinson managed to get the votes for the approval of the Golden Dream despite his opposition. (He essentially accuses those who voted for Robinson’s development of corruption. Democracy!) Jagowitz lies about his family history, claiming they emigrated to America in 1889 from Yugoslavia, even though Yugoslavia didn’t exist until the Treaty of Versailles, thirty years later, and didn’t exist when the book was written either. He also keeps accusing Joe of stealing a bag of potato chips, although to be fair, Joe should have waited Jagowitz to ring up his purchase rather than just dropping a couple of quarters on the counter.
   
   
3. Clay Robinson. Clay’s a genial fellow, and Stella, his dog, loves him, but he’s ruffled a few feathers getting the Golden Dream project approved. Sykes doesn’t like him either, making cryptic comments about Robinson stealing moonstones. Also, Robinson tells the Hardys, “When Clay Robinson gets it into his head to do something, by golly, he does it. Always remember that, boys. Stick to your guns, no matter what” (6). Frank says it’s good advice, and I know it sounds that way in a “never give up on your dreams” sense, but taken to its extremes, it becomes delusional or psychopathic. Sure, he disappears early in the book, but he could be staging his abduction for nefarious purposes.
   
   
4. Alistair Sykes, a scientist / UFOlogist. The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence let him go after their funding was cut — according to him — and now he’s working from his home, with a radio telescope and equipment he paid for himself. He too has an (unspecified) grudge against Robinson, so perhaps he abducted a man he doesn’t like to play up the alien-abduction angle and even used his own abduction to drum up publicity and the funding he needs for his work.
   
   
5. Aliens! No, not really — but what’s up with that weird guy who keeps wandering around at night in sunglasses?

After Robinson disappears, Frank and Joe uncharacteristically agree to call the cops, but Sgt. Bunt and his team inspire no confidence. Terry asks the Hardys to investigate, even though she claims she’s not supposed to know they’re detectives. “Word gets around school,” she says, and the narration claims, “They tried to keep it quiet” (32). This is in contrast to The Ice-Cold Case (#148), just three books before, when even a classmate’s father knows they’re detectives.

(Speaking of uncharacteristic, Frank is the B&E King this book rather than Joe; Frank uses his lockpicks to break into a couple of places, setting off the burglar alarm in one location. Also uncharacteristic: When their raft is sabotaged, Frank gets dumped into the water, which causes Joe to pity him: “It could have happened to anyone” [30], which is the Hardys’ version of “Don’t worry: It happens to all guys.” Perhaps he should pity Frank — he and Joe were outstanding white-water rafters in The Roaring River Mystery (#80], so falling out of a raft is a huge step down for him.)

They visit with Sykes and learn that despite all his fancy equipment and learning, he’s decided that an invented language, known only by him, is the best way to communicate with aliens, and he almost concludes a powerful Mexican radio station playing salsa music is an alien signal. Later, after a possibly alien-caused electrical outage at the Silver Crest, he disappears, with only an open window to suggest where he went.

Not uncharacteristic is Joe’s ability to put himself in danger. Joe and Terry visit Moondance Peak to sightsee and give themselves something to do while Terry exposits to Joe about the area and Robinson. (There’s no romance here, no, no! Joe has no hormones — or at least not the ones that would cause a teenage boy to react when alone with a female classmate in a beautiful setting.) While Joe and Terry are on the way down, Myra, the ski-lift operator, shuts the lift down; Joe tries to climb down a nearby pole but nearly falls to his death instead. The lift starts up again soon after. This almost exactly like what happened in Carnival of Crime (#122), when Joe almost falls to his death getting out of his gondola on a stalled Ferris wheel to help a kid who doesn’t actually need his help.

Because of his belief that the government is concealing proof of aliens, Joe cashes in some of Fenton’s chips with his friend, General Radman. Radman sets up a meeting with General Webster at NORAD, who essentially tells the boys to stop grasping at straws and act like rational adults rather than conspiracy freaks. Joe is more or less satisfied, and we all have to agree as taxpayers that this hour-long conference, soothing the paranoia of a teenage boy, is a great use of a military officer’s time and expertise.

On their way back to Silver Crest, Frank is forced to stop on a lonely road by a bright light. After a “quick jab of pain” (107), Frank loses consciousness; when he awakens, Joe is missing, and he claims something had hit him over the head. (Nothing hit him in the head; he was jabbed with a knockout drug.) Frank and Terry immediately confront Myra and Bev; Frank thinks they are “downright mean and capable of just about anything” (113), and I can’t decide if that’s a damning statement from Frank (he’s seen a lot of crimes) or if Frank’s imagination is so limited he can’t think of anything truly awful. Terry bluffs and gets Myra and Bev to admit they stole a moonstone necklace from Robinson’s safe.

Then Joe shows up on a bicycle after Bev and Myra slip away from the interrogation and, without consulting his brother, puts Bev in a headlock. You know, as one does. It’s not like he has any reason to suspect the ladies. He woke up in a cow pasture with Robinson, then ran into Frank and Terry. He only beat up on a woman because it looked like she and her friend were fleeing, and if that’s not an allegory for modern police practices, I don’t know what is.

Neither Joe nor Robinson remembers anything helpful. Despite the lateness of the hour, Robinson goes to complete the task his kidnapping prevented him from completing days before: talking to his lawyer. That’s a good idea, because Frank — after a visit to Jagowitz — works out that Robinson is behind everything. When Sykes saw Bev wearing a moonstone necklace that had been stolen from his mother decades before, Sykes realized Robinson had been the thief and tried to blackmail him. Robinson decided not to take extortion lying down, staging his own kidnapping before abducting Sykes (and later Joe).

I must admit: I very much admire how Frank figures out the motive, working through an A.B.C. Murders setup. At first, he conjectures Robinson was the true target, and Sykes and Joe were taken to muddy the waters. When Joe and Robinson turn up, he switches gears — Sykes was the real target, and Robinson and Joe were kidnapped to obscure the real motive. Frank shows he’s the intelligent one, for once, rather than Dixon just telling us.

The Hardys track Robinson and his dog, Stella, to a mine — Frank finds the hidden door to the abandoned mine after he “ran his flashlight over the mountain” (134), which … wait, the entire mountain? — and after leaving Stella outside, they find Robinson about to blow up the mine to kill Sykes. Frank tries to convince Robinson he’s not a killer, but Robinson reminds Frank of the advice he gave Frank at the beginning of the book: “I said once you’ve got it into your head to do something, you stick to your guns” (145). Fortunately, Stella wanders into the mine — Joe didn’t actually tie her up or put her in their vehicle or anything — and Robinson can’t bring himself to harm his dog. He’s put in jail for his stupid, stupid crimes.

Trouble at Coyote Canyon (#119)

As Trouble at Coyote Canyon begins, Frank and Joe are flying into Durango, Colo., to help Mike Preston protect his horseback tour business, Teen Trails West, from “accidents.” How do Frank and Joe know Mike? Well, they don’t — Doug Newman, the windsurfer / meathead from Wipeout (#96) has recommended the brothers to Mike. How does a windsurfer in France know a guy running a wilderness tourism business in southwestern Colorado? “Apparently, they’re old friends,” Frank says (2), showing as much interest in how the two men are linked as I have.

I’m more interested in how recommendations work in the digests. Frank and Joe rarely get paid — they don’t get paid here, either — so what do people need to say to get their endangered friends and loved ones to “hire” Frank and Joe? If your business is about to go under, as Mike contends his is, then what’s to lose by giving a free tour to a couple of kids who believe they can help? I suppose they need someone to get their name to the person in trouble; Trouble at Coyote Canyon came out in 1993, when an Internet search on “free teenage detectives” would have been impossible.

(Speaking of 1993: at one point, a character says a guy he knew thought the Anasazi tribe disappeared because they were taken away by aliens. That’s a theory mentioned by Fox Mulder of the X-Files, which debuted in fall 1993.)

On the other hand, Frank and Joe must be well known: when they reveal their roles on the tour to their fellow campers, one of them says, “You mean you’re that Frank and Joe Hardy? … The detectives? I’ve read all about your famous cases!” (140). I suppose it could be that Frank and Joe are the selective ones; if you are from out of town and want them to investigate, then someone has to recommend you to the Hardys.

So what are Frank and Joe supposed to do for their free Western vacation? Well, Teen Trails West has suffered some accidents, and Mike thinks someone has it out for his business. Suspects abound: the business rival, the spoiled rich girl, a possible agent from the other business …

Books like this make me want to go back to my old format, in which I talked about funny bits and how the book aligned with previous Hardy lore: using martial arts (they don’t here) or where they say Bayport is (New York, just outside the city), how often the Hardys have ridden horses and if they have ever gone to Colorado — yes, before you ask: while camping in Danger on Vampire Trail (#50) and while investigating in Mystery of the Desert Giant (#40). They even visit a Shetland pony ranch in Mystery of the Desert Giant! Can you imagine? Well, you’ll have to, because it’s not like the writers of that period are going to paint you a word picture.

So there’s no point in recounting Trouble at Coyote Canyon’s plot. And it’s not a badly written book; it’s just one that sticks closely to the digests’ pattern. Someone’s making things hard on a small businessman (the backbone of America) by doing stupid things that look like bad luck or maybe sabotage, veering between annoying the victims and attempted manslaughter. Then Frank and Joe solve the case before someone dies. The end.

I want something different. I want Frank and Joe, during their snooping, spotting a couple of teens in the middle of hot monkey love, or maybe Joe and the stuck-up girl having a session of hate makeouts. I want Frank or Joe to pick up a rifle and think about having to use it. Just something — anything — different would be welcomed. But instead, we get something right out The Sign of the Crooked Arrow (#28) or The Secret of Wildcat Swamp (#31) or Mystery of the Desert Giant or The Money Hunt (#101) or … well, there’s not enough snow to make the original Hunting for Hidden Gold (#5) a direct comp, but it’s still pretty close.

Trouble at Coyote Canyon does have an insane prospector, but that's an incredibly Hardy Boys thing to wander across. The most surprising thing about Coyote Canyon is that the first knockout of either brother comes on pg. 133, and that’s the only KO in the entire book.

That being said, I want to go over a few things in Coyote Canyon:

One of the characters on the tour is Jessica Springer, a rich girl from Beverly Hills, the daughter of a movie director who has been in movies herself. Jessica is always portrayed as a jerk, and she is a jerk. But she’s not always wrong, and the book fails to acknowledge that.

At one point, the teen tourists are told they might see coyotes on the trip. Joe’s excited by the prospect, but Jessica says, “Coyotes are boring” (7). Jessica is right: they are boring, as wild animals go. I grew up in the lower Midwest, and in the fall and winter, I heard coyotes howling almost every night. People keep trying to call her “Jessie,” which Jessica — rightfully — resents and corrects. (I would too, if I were in her shoes.) She sniffs when Mike tells her his wife, Dottie, cuts both their hair; I imagine their hairstyles to be extremely utilitarian and not up to the standard of even an average teenage girl — or these days, any average teenager. Everyone laughs at her when she falls over her saddle after her stirrup is positioned too high, which is just mean.

Like I said, she’s supposed to be unlikeable, but a “nice” character keeps telling his friends he wants to put all sorts of creepy critters in her bed roll. (I think we’re supposed to read something crypto-sexual into the “nice” guy’s desires, but I can’t swear to it.) We’re supposed to understand that it’s an extreme, not acceptable response to Jessica’s snobbishness, and I appreciate that. But Jessica is the bad guy because she’s verbally unpleasant; she doesn’t do or threaten anything physical, like the “nice” guy does.

Greg, the guy who wants to put something shocking into Jessica’s bed, claims to be a musician, although he actually plays the accordion. I find it hard to believe the tour would allow him to lug that big of an instrument out on the trail, but evidently Mike has no policy against bulky “musical” instruments. The villain, on the other hand, has a more sensible policy, interrupting one of Greg’s impromptu concerts: “Before he could start to play, the silence was shattered by the sound of three closely spaced gunshots!” (93).

The brakes have failed on several of the vehicles Frank and Joe have been in during the series. Trouble at Coyote Canyon has a special distinction: it is, I believe, the first time the brakes have failed on a horse-drawn wagon (specifically, the chuckwagon).

As I mentioned, Trouble at Coyote Canyon has plenty of suspects, one of whom calls Frank and Joe “out-of-town muscle” (10), which I appreciate. Later in the book, the worst act of sabotage happens: two-thirds of the tour’s water supply is destroyed. The tour leader plays down the significance of this but privately confides to Frank and Joe that it’s pretty bad. But later, with clouds rolling in, the group makes no attempt to catch any water in buckets. “These cloudbursts generally end as quick as they begin,” Mike says (115), but not even trying to get a little water — which could make a difference in a life-or-death situation — suggests the danger isn’t as great as Mike made it out to the Hardys.

While on the five-day tour, the camp provides food and drink. Somehow, after the water supply is depleted, the campers are still given orange juice for breakfast. For some reason, “orange juice” is not listed among their assets in staving off dehydration, but more importantly, how did they keep orange juice cold for several days on the trip? I don’t think standard coolers can keep orange juice cold for multiple days on the trail.

Open Season (Casefiles #59)

Plot: While on a Colorado skiing trip, Frank and Joe stumble into the attempted murder of K.D. Becker, a wildlife researcher.

“Borrowing” from the past: When Joe and Frank are menaced by a mountain lion, Becker saves their lives by shooting the big cat with a tranquilizer dart. Back in the old days, Frank and Joe could have taken care of it themselves — mowing down wolves in Hunting for Hidden Gold (#5), successfully hunting a fox in The Mystery of Cabin Island (#8), or just bonking a tiger in the head with a rock in The Disappearing Floor (#19). Frank was hardcore in The Short-Wave Mystery (#24), killing a lynx with a radio antenna.

In any event, Frank and Joe faced off against pumas / cougars / mountain lions in The Clue of the Screeching Owl (#41) and the only time Frank and Joe dealt with a cougar is in The Mystery of the Flying Express (#20), although the creature is shot before Frank and Joe see it in Express. However, what the various Dixons mean by “wildcat” is sometimes in doubt; occasionally it seems to be larger than the small, wild feline the term usually refers to. The Hardys were confronted by wildcats in The Secret of Wildcat Swamp (#31), of course, and in Mystery of the Desert Giant (#40) and The Voodoo Plot (#72).

This is not the first time the boys have gone cross-country skiing. The previous times include the most famous winter mysteries, The Mystery of Cabin Island and The Yellow Feather Mystery (#33), although they were skiing across the Bayport countryside rather than the Rocky Mountains. Frank and Joe are also described as “able” skiers in Cave-In! (#78). Open Season is set during the Hardys’ two-week Christmas vacation. Previous mysteries that have taken place during the Christmas holidays include The Cabin Island Mystery, The Mysterious Caravan (#54), and Cave-In!.

One of the suspects in the case has a shortwave radio in his cabin. It’s been quite a while since Frank and Joe have come across one of those. Their most famous encounter with the short waves was in both versions of The Short-Wave Mystery, but they also had shortwaves in the original What Happened at Midnight (#10), The Secret of Skull Mountain (#27), Mystery of the Chinese Junk (#39), The Viking Symbol Mystery (#42), The Mystery of the Spiral Bridge (#45), The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (#46), The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo (#47), Tic-Tac-Terror (#74), and The Blackwing Puzzle (#82) and revised versions of The Shore Road Mystery (#6), A Figure in Hiding (#16), The Secret Warning (#17), The Twisted Claw (#18), The Disappearing Floor, The Secret of Wildcat Swamp, and The Ghost at Skeleton Rock (#37). Really, it seems like it was a craze in the 1960s.

Feels like he’s wearing nothing at all: At the beginning of Open Season, Joe describes his “tight-fitting, one-piece, insulated ski suit” as “the cutting edge of ski technology and fashion. It’s lightweight, gives me room to move — and it matches my baby blues.” Which reminded me of this scene from the Simpson, where Homer is distracted by a memory of Flanders in his skin-tight ski suit: “Stupid sexy Flanders.”

Rocky Mountain high: Gunnison National Forest, where the story is set, actually exists in west central Colorado; it’s not incredibly far from Aspen, to throw out a name of a ski town that you’ve heard of, but there are other wilderness areas that are closer. (Such as White River National Forest, which is just to the north.) Gunnison forms a larger unit with Grand Mesa and Uncompahgre forests, which combine for more than 3 million acres in the Rockies in west central and southwestern Colorado. (Uncompahgre is near Telluride, another ski town.) The forests have the unattractive acronym of GMUG.

The Hardys drift into and out of the small town of Elk Springs. There is an Elk Springs in Colorado, but it’s not in or adjacent to Gunnison National Forest. Elk Springs is in northwestern Colorado, closer to White River National Forest and Routt National Forest.

He who breaks the law shall be punished back to the House of Pain: The sheriff points out their “investigation” is actual grand theft, since they swiped a snowmobile to get away from a bunch of cattle hands while the boys were trespassing. Although the owner of the snowmobile owner declines to press charges, the sheriff has another chance to use the law against the boys, when they’re helping a fugitive evade the law. The sheriff threatens to charge them as accessories, while Frank counter-threatens to sue for wrongful injury since he was knocked out by shrapnel while being shot at by a deputy.

Poor, poor pitiful us: While Frank and Joe are challenging one another to push themselves while cross-country skiing, Frank silently complains that others don’t see the boys’ best qualities: “Other people saw only a couple of teenagers. They didn’t see the serious, dedicated detective team.” There’s a reason for that, exemplified by this book: Frank and Joe frequently don’t do much detecting, unless you count random accusations, trespassing, and breaking and entering as “detecting.”

While confronting a cougar poacher, Frank and Joe are momentarily stopped by the hunter’s assertion that he has permission to hunt on the land. A bystander, however, points out the owner is Becker, who is a wildlife researcher unlikely to give permission to someone killing cougars. Joe complements him, saying, “Nice piece of detective work.” Given that Joe’s idea of detective work was to barrel into an armed man on skis, that’s damning with faint praise, although it’s not meant to be.

Frank also criticizes the sheriff, asking him, “Do you solve a lot of cases by eavesdropping?” Given how many cases Frank and Joe have cracked through that technique, I don’t think Frank has anything to complain about.

Ha!: After Joe’s only plan to gather more information on a poacher is to burst into his hospital room and grill “him relentlessly for hours,” Frank accuses him of reading too many cheap detective novels. “They don’t come much cheaper than us,” Joe says, which is true — you can’t find mysteries much cheaper than the Hardy Boys. Later, when Frank needs a distraction to use the library’s computer (it has a modem!), Joe ends up checking out a stack of paperback whodunits.

Who are you, and what have you done with Frank?: While staying at the cabin of one of the suspects — a very accommodating suspect — Frank makes “ a conscious effort not to snoop around the cabin.” This behavior is inimical to the Hardy Boys and everything they stand for. When a suspect is out of his home, and you’re in it, you snoop! Dammit, what is wrong with kids these days?

Rural decay: Frank says the small mountain town of Elk Springs is his kind of place: “Most of these stores look like they’ve always been here and always will be. There are no instant neon fast-food minimalls. No highrise office complexes.” Joe also chimes in, saying the lack of development is charming. The local they’re chatting with has a more realistic point of view: what they’re praising is a general lack of economic development caused by the lack of tourism. For Frank and Joe the economic isolation and general lack of development is quaint. For the locals, it’s a slow economic death sentence.

Plan and plan! What is plan?: Frank uses a “clever” subterfuge to get close enough to a suspect to question him. Joe turns the questioning into a series of accusations, because in Open Season Joe is an idiot. After the failure of the interview, Frank criticizes Joe, saying, “The plan was to draw him into a conversation and see if anything slipped out, not hurl accusations in his face.” Good general rule, perhaps, but Frank didn’t see fit to actually fill Joe in on the plan before the interview — the extent of his instructions to his brother were, “Leave this to me.” More polite than “Keep your mouth shut,” perhaps, but what intelligent person is going to think that’s going to work with Joe?

Are they blind?: After a perilous climb that ended with them falling several feet in a pickup truck that flipped over as an avalanche started, Frank and Joe drive to the hospital to see Becker. The ER nurses think the boys are there for treatment; Frank is amazed that he and his brother look like they need treatment. Didn’t they see each other after the dust from the avalanche settled? Or while they were driving back to Elk Springs? I swear, they have to be the least observant detectives in the history of ever.

Opinions: I don't know why it bothers me so much that Frank and Joe don’t do any detecting in Open Season. They often trespass, break and enter, and randomly accuse people in other books; why is it so bad here? Perhaps because they encounter a sheriff who is actually willing to enforce those laws against the Hardys; perhaps because I’m just getting fed up with it. Their techniques have the subtlety of a brick wrapped in burlap, although their shadowing skills are generally pretty good given the lack of cover.

Open Season does get points for its underused setting. Winter in the mountains — the isolation, the closed pool of suspects, the potential for “accidents” … it’s a good setup. Open Season fails to make full use of it, but it’s a good idea.

Grade: C. A dull “adventure” in which Frank and Joe’s atrophied detecting skills are helped by the target-rich environment.