Kickoff to Danger (#170)

You know, I’ve never considered the idea that I would ever question a Hardy Boy book’s characterization of Biff Hooper, but now I’ve read Kickoff to Danger (#170), and well, that day is here.

Kickoff is a weird title. On one hand, it’s a Bayport-based mystery that uses the Hardys’ chums and supporting cast. Those kinds of mysteries are really my favorites. The book also makes a concession to reality — more than one, really, as not only does Frank leave the football team to take an advanced computer course, but someone outperforms a Hardy on an athletic field. I approve, and if either of those changes would have stuck, I’d have overlooked all the book’s problems.

On the other hand, too many supporting characters are introduced; it would be OK if I expected to see any of them again, but Kickoff will likely be the only appearance for various school personnel and students. And sometimes Kickoff portrays recurring characters all wrong. For instance, Biff Hooper goes along with what the popular kids are doing, which isn’t too out of character, but what the popular kids are doing is bullying everyone else in the school, and Biff participates, even when the bullying involves ganging up on Chet Morton. Iola Morton doesn’t appear in the book despite Chet being accused of whacking Biff in the head with a coal shovel. A subplot in which a meek teacher is run out of school goes nowhere. In another scene, Frank and Callie discuss football like people who have heard of the sport but are unsure of the terminology. Given that it’s debatable whether the kids speak like real teens (or real humans) in the first place, though, maybe I shouldn’t dock a Hardy Boys book for its dialogue.

What pushes the book into “good book” territory is the violence and a random bit of Hardy Boys continuity. For the former, Biff gets whanged so hard with a coal shovel that he’s put in a coma, and later on, someone gets very close to killing him. The two incidents give a bit of extra weight to the events of the book, even if it’s strange the events go from bullying to assault to attempted murder.

The bit of continuity that is dredged up is that Seneca Tech is Bayport’s cross-county football rival. Do you know what book originally revealed that Bayport vs. Seneca Tech is the big game for both squads? The Sinister Sign Post (#15), published way back in 1936. (Kickoff was released in 2001.) And how did that game turn out? Bayport won, with Joe out with an arm injury. Frank was not on the squad at all — just like in Kickoff.

Kickoff begins with Callie and Frank commiserating over the difficulty of trigonometry. (The “commiseration” extends to physicality, as Callie ruffles her boyfriend’s hair. So that’s what they’re calling it these days!) Both are planning on college; in fact, Frank is taking a toughie of a college computer programming course, which is why he isn’t playing football. The course seems to have removed all of Frank’s fun circuits too, as he calls a football player who jumps off a loading dock on his way to practice a “clown” (4). While watching Joe practice, he spells out the plot to Callie: new student Terry Golden is awesome at the footballs, is getting scouted by college programs, and is a giant jackhole whose entourage wants to be the same as he is.

Callie’s reaction? She’s sad because she “liked dating a football hero” (7). You should have thought of Callie, Frank! It’s not every boy who has a girlfriend who will ruffle his hair, if you know what I mean, and I think you don’t.

After practice, Golden gives a puff-piece interview with the Beacon, the school newspaper; after the reporter leaves, he and his cronies bully Chet, snapping their towels at him. Biff helps them, which takes all the fight out of Chet. The next day, Chet’s still feeling the effects — after Golden steals his dessert at lunch, Chet throws in the towel and tries to get in good with the Golden Boys.

After deciding not to head to Mr. Pizza to see Tony Prito, Frank runs into the aftermath of the rivalry that will drive the book: he finds Dan Freeman, debate club champ and Beacon photog, after he has been pantsed by the Golden Boys. Freeman refuses to rat out his attackers, though. The next day, the Golden Boys shove other students around, and they nearly push Phil Cohen down the stairs; only the quick reactions of Joe and Biff save him. (This is Phil’s only appearance in the story, so all you Cohen fanatics better appreciate it.)

Frank and Joe approach the football coach to have him talk to the unruly athletes, but he refuses, which sets the scene for “tragedy.” After a big win vs. Seneca Tech, the Golden Boys stage an elaborate prank in which they steal the debate team’s backpacks; when the debate nerds follow the thieves into the basement, other Golden Boys are there to pummel them. Chet, who thought he was in on the joke, gets beaten too, and when Frank and Joe follow the chaos, they find Chet with a black eye and a coal shovel in his hand, standing over Biff’s unconscious body. Joe considers violating the rules of the Fentonian Mysteries by wiping the fingerprints from the shovel, but Frank — steady, faithful Frank — chastises his brother for his weakness. The evidence is preserved, and surely those who have kept it holy shall be blessed.

Biff is taken to the hospital, and the Hardys learn he was trying to foil the assault on the debate team. (He did a poor job of it, though.) Chet’s taken to police headquarters, and his name is released on the evening news. Mr. and Mrs. Morton come by, in a panic; additionally, Mr. Morton is in a “blue velour jogging — or rather, leisure — suit” (66), which is inexcusable. Honestly, man, have more pride than that. Also: You should shave our head, since you’ve “lost almost all the hair on the top of his head except for a little tuft just over his forehead” (65-6). You’re going bald. Own it.

Fenton gives the Mortons good advice — get a criminal defense lawyer, not a real-estate lawyer — but he gives the information in a jerkish, “haven’t I done enough for your family?” sort of way. The Mortons are not pleased, and Laura calls her husband on his bedside manner.

The school is useless in the investigation, the TV news has no interest in finding another suspect, and the Bayport Police Department is, after all, the Bayport Police Department. Frank and Joe feed Con Riley a lead — the coal shovel should have been filthy, but it was wiped and had only Chet’s fingerprints, meaning someone else had used it and wiped his / her fingerprints — but that goes nowhere. It’s up to Frank and Joe to investigate! They suspect Golden whacked Biff, although they should have suspected one of the nerdlingers: A shovel is a tool, and intelligent creatures use tools, not knuckle-dragging morons.

They are immediately threatened with a shunning, although a weak-minded Golden Boy reveals his co-conspirators by flinching when Joe guesses their names. Coach Devlin belatedly tries “discipline,” although his version of discipline involves — as it often does for middle-aged men physically in charge of young men — yelling and making the boys run. This doesn’t stop one of the larger Golden Boys from taking a swing at Joe; in response, Joe uses “that move [Frank] taught … where you catch the guy’s wrist when he throws a punch and use that to twist his arm” (95), then tries to stuff the attacker into a locker. (The guy won’t fit, sadly.) Nice move, Joe!

But retribution comes: someone throws a 2x4 at the Hardys’ van, shattering the windshield and nearly hitting Callie. After taking Callie home and securing Con’s help, they randomly accuse Golden Boy Wendell Logan. He cracks, admitting tossing the caber at the van, but he knows little else. And he doesn’t know much about the attack on Biff, either. Frank and Joe are convinced the law would be useless against Logan, so they don’t press charges. They could at least sue the jerk-o for damages!

On the way home, an SUV tries to bump the Hardys off the road repeatedly. After a narrow escape, they learn the SUV was stolen from near Golden’s house. Fenton complains about the repair costs, but we all know the Hardys have SUPER INSURANCE — it’s the only way they could afford their destructive lifestyles — so they should be OK. Nobody files any charges with the police, although Joe does let Con know over the phone.

The next day, Frank ditches a chance to see Callie, instead going with Joe (who is skipping football practice himself) to see Biff at Bayport General Hospital. Frank “silently promis[es] to make it up to her later” (128). No, you won’t, Frank. You never do, you non-football hero.

At the hospital, the Hardys find Dan Freeman battered in the bushes and a fire alarm blaring at the hospital. Freeman tells the Hardys that Golden pulled the alarm and is using the confusion to slip in and attack Biff. While Joe fruitlessly attempts to get hospital security interested in a possible murder — they will be struck down by a righteous, Fentonian god for their inaction — Frank and Freeman go to rescue Biff. Freeman admits he whanged Biff; in the dark, he didn’t know who he was hitting. But Golden worked Freeman over after Freeman backed out of his own plan to kill Biff. Freeman tries to pass his murder scheme as a, you know, thought experiment, but really, once you’ve started thinking about murdering somebody, you’re on thin ice.

Thankfully, Frank prevents Golden from putting an air bubble in Biff’s IV, then beats him up before he can physically assault Biff. He keeps him down until the guard assigned to protect Biff can return. And that is that! No one mentions what Golden is going to be charged with, just that his football career is down the tubes. Freeman is suddenly less attractive to colleges, but no one expects him to serve any jail time for his conspiracy to murder Biff. Joe gets in a dig about “NFL” standing for “National Felons’ League” (147), and Biff is forgiven for his heel turn. We will never speak of this again!

The Mystery in the Old Mine (#121)

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.

The Money Hunt (#101)

So after Dungeon of Doom (#99), a pretty good (if drawn out too long) digest, The Money Hunt is a letdown. I mean, I literally fell asleep while reading it.

The Money Hunt begins with Frank and Joe planning the route they will take on their fall vacation trip with Chet and Biff to Florida. I’m not sure how many schools schedule a lengthy fall vacation, but Bayport High School certainly seems like the kind of school to do so. Perhaps they even instituted Fall Break in consideration of the Hardys! Or maybe Frank and Joe aren’t in high school; they don’t mention their education at all.

But their vacation plans are hijacked. Fenton gets a phone call from Steve Johnson, a former police colleague — a lot of Fenton’s old pals are mentioned in this book — who’s having trouble at his Maine lodge. Fenton can’t go because he’s injured his ankle, so he volunteers Frank and Joe without asking them if they want to help. Of course Frank and Joe do, but it is inconsiderate for him not to ask first. Just as Fenton doesn’t consider his sons’ opinions, Frank and Joe don’t consider what Chet and Biff want. For Frank and Joe, mysteries are the most important thing in life. Perhaps they could even establish a mystery-based religion, which would allow them excused absences for mystery-related holidays … the Dixonian Mysteries? No, too meta. The Fentonian Mysteries, perhaps. Mystery religions are well established the world over, although this would take the concept in a new direction.

Fenton was injured, not in a life-and-death struggle or because a malefactor got the better of him, but because he “lost the suspect … when he tripped over a flower pot and severely sprained his ankle” (3). That’s just sad, Fenton. It’s not like you were running from a tiger, like in The Disappearing Floor (#19), or shot in the leg with a poisoned arrow, like in The Sign of the Crooked Arrow (#28), or even stabbed by Ranse Hobb, like in The Blackwing Puzzle (#82). I admit, he did sprain his ankle in The Short-Wave Mystery, #24, as well, but c’mon, man …

Fenton describes Maine by quoting from the first line of Longfellow’s “Evangeline” — “murmuring pines and the hemlocks,” not the better known, “This is the forest primeval.” He’s trying to get across the idea that he wishes he could go, but it’s not hard to imagine that’s he’s happier in his own home, lying in bed, napping and reading mystery novels, rather than working at a remote hunting lodge. Especially since Steve Johnson’s troubles are so trivial; someone’s setting animal traps that almost hurt Steve’s lodgers, who have also heard mysterious chainsawing during the night. There are also minor thefts and an ATV-riding ghost, but the latter is too stupid to go into. Also — and this is an aside, not important at all, no no no — thirteen years ago, before Steve bought the lodge, four bank robbers from Boston hid out at the lodge while it was abandoned. Three were caught, but only the fourth knew where the loot was hidden.

No mystery is too trivial for Frank and Joe, so they head to Maine to dive head-first into the Fentonian Mysteries. (Chet and Biff can’t go, for some reason.) They fly over Moosehead Lake — which is a real lake in northwestern Maine — on their way to Mirror Lake, which is not. (Well, a few Mirror Lakes exist in Maine, but none of them are near Moosehead.) As Steve drives them back to the lodge in his jeep, the brakes fail from sabotage; rather than cutting the brake line, someone’s removed the brake lining. Certainly a twist on a classic, which I appreciate.

But it’s no more effective than usual, as everyone survives, of course. Steve’s sure one of his guests is behind his problems. Joe tells him they’ll solve the mystery if he can keep his cool: “A happy innkeeper …” Joe starts, and Steve finishes, “Keeps his head?” (38). Is that a proverb? I’ve never heard it, and Google shrugs when I ask it. In fact, Google doesn’t find any proverbs beginning with “a happy innkeeper.”

Let’s keep our heads as well — let’s examine … the suspect pool!

• Mr. Burns, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Buckley: The Three Bs are “middle-aged businessmen from Providence” (38), but they’re evasive about what their business is.
  
• Arthur and Adele Ackerly: She’s a champion trap and skeet shooter, trying out hunting live game for the first time. She’s also a talker; her husband rarely gets a word in edgewise.
  
• Len Randle and Mike Mallory: Len says he’s a writer for Outdoor Life magazine on his first assignment, while Mike is his photographer
  
• Mr. Peters and Mr. Fletcher: Peters is an elderly man who has come to Maine to watch birds. Fletcher is his assistant and caregiver.

The usual shenanigans occur. The ATV ghost, a figure in white joyriding on the lodge’s ATV, rides by Frank and Joe and scares them into falling into the shallow end of Mirror Lake. Someone throws a hunting knife at Joe, and Adele Ackerly seems the only reasonable suspect. A dummy is left in the fridge with a note warning the boys off. When the boys dispose of it, Len Randle thinks it’s a body and calls 9-1-1. (Joe calls 9-1-1 back and cancels the order for police, which is exactly what a murderer would try to do while he murders more people.) Randle then admits he’s trying to sell an article to a supermarket tabloid, In the Know, rather than an outdoors magazine.

Frank and Joe summon Biff and Chet, and for some reason, the chums are now available. It’s Frank and Joe’s first full day at the lodge, just 24 hours or so after they left Bayport; why couldn’t Chet and Biff have traveled with them? While Frank and Joe are poking their noses into everyone’s cabins and the grounds, Frank is locked in a burning shed and is saved by Steve’s handyman, Willy.

When Frank and Joe try to follow the Three Bs, the brothers notice someone has moved the trail markers. More importantly, they literally run into a net trap, and they are saved only by a Chester ex machina: the helicopter Chet and Biff have rented to make it to the lodge flies near them, and Joe uses his red scarf — a not-very-well-made gift from Iola — to flag them down. Fenton managed to get Chet and Biff to Maine quickly by calling on one of his old friends who runs a commuter service, so the two arrive in time to save Frank and Joe’s bacon. Fenton also sends information on the bank robbery, dug up by another old friend at the Bayport Times.

Chet and Biff pretend not to know Frank and Joe. Chet takes on the persona of a worldly hiker, telling everyone about his walking tours in Africa and the Canadian Rockies. His friends give Chet stick for his tales, but he has been to sub-Saharan Africa (in Revenge of the Desert Phantom, #84), and he has been to the Canadian Rockies (in The Mystery at Devil’s Paw, #38). He’s not lying, fellows. But when he and Biff dress up for hiking later, Joe says Chet and Biff look like “an ad for L.L. Bean” (104) in their new hiking gear.

After an attack on Burns by “a ghost,” Frank and Joe use the information Fenton provided to figure out the Three Bs are the paroled bank robbers. Once they reach that conclusion, the real villains — not the Three Bs — move quickly, cutting off the lodge’s radio and telephone communication with the outside world. The kids follow various suspects into the wilderness, but Biff and Chet lose their quarry quickly, and Joe has to turn back when Frank is menaced by a bear. Bears have always been common threats for the Hardys, appearing in seven books in the canon. Seven! And the Hardys have been threatened by all sorts of bears: black, brown, grizzly, polar. This one’s a brown bear. Frank and Joe escape this one, just as they did all the others.

One beast Franklin W. Dixon has never before tried to sell as a threat to the Hardys is a deer, but that happens in The Money Hunt. After recovering from the bear attack, the Hardys and Biff find Chet tied to a tree, with a buck with a “magnificent rack” (121) standing near him. (The buck is described as a six-pointer; I’m assuming the writer is from a state that counts only one side of the rack, which means the deer could have also been described as a more impressive 12-point buck.) Fortunately, the Hardys, Biff, and the Ackerlys frighten it away by using the advanced wilderness technique of “moving closer.” Before it flees, everyone except Fletcher and Peters gathers around, lured by what is evidently the only deer in Maine. Pooling mental resources, they figure out Peters is the remaining bank robber in heavy disguise.

Now, Frank and Joe have been slow on the uptake not to realize this; that’s not unusual. But Frank … he’s supposed to be the smart one, and he’s been frequently wrong in The Money Hunt. He misidentifies the capital of Maine as Portland. He believes the sun sets in the northwest in autumn in Maine. (The book doesn’t correct him on this; that he believes this is supposed to be part of his wilderness lore, and it helps him get his bearings.) He doesn’t realize the musical scale doesn’t include “H.” C’mon, Frank: you’re supposed to be better than this!

When the Hardys return from their forest powwow, they find Peters and Fletcher (an electrical engineer and poacher who found the dying Peters thirteen years before) stealing a float plane. Frank and Joe are kidnapped, of course. Once aloft, Fletcher attaches a device to the plane that will aim it right at the lodge and kill everyone inside (plus Frank and Joe). The two villains, who have the stolen bank loot, will escape to Canada in the confusion. After the villains abandon ship, Frank and Joe loosen their bonds enough so that they can nudge the controls, and the plane miraculously makes an uneventful water landing. Well, it would be a miracle in the real world. Frank expects it. Frank was trained to fly and land sea planes in The Viking Symbol Mystery (#42), so maybe he knows what he's — no, I can't finish that thought with a straight face.

Everyone goes back to the lodge for dinner for a celebratory dinner. The criminals aren’t caught, although Frank and Joe are sure they will be: their electrical boat engine wasn’t charged, and the authorities have been alerted. After all, what are the chances that two men who eluded a search thirteen years ago in the Maine woods could do it again?

Interestingly, Peters might be in the clear for the original bank robbery; the federal statute of limitations is only five years, and the Massachusetts statute of limitations is only 10 years. However, there’s a catch: the statute of limitations is paused (“tolled”) if the accused is not a resident or is in hiding within the state. So depending on how Peters spent the time, he might have been untouchable for the crime!

I kinda hope he gets away with everything. Good luck to you, ATV ghost!