Secret of the Red Arrow: Hardy Boys Adventures, Book 1

The Hardy Boys Adventures: Secret of the Red Arrow by Franklin W DixonIn this latest reboot of the Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe are endeavoring to live normal lives. Having had a lot of success in putting away criminals, the legal side of the boy’s work has caught up with them. Things like the fact that they have no official status, not even Private Investigator Licenses; they have no insurance to cover damages to private citizens or their property; and no insurance against the criminal suing them for their citizens arrest—all these lead to their enforced “retirement.”For their “retirement” to work, “the deal” was put in place. Basic rules mean none of the Hardy’s can work as private investigators, not even retired police detective Fenton Hardy. These days the Hardy Boys’ father can be found writing books on the history of law enforcement. Frank and Joe are to go to school and hang out with friends. There is to be no investigations at all under threat of arrest for interfering in Police Affairs. Failure to comply would mean the brothers would be shipped to J’Abobe, a small island twenty miles offshore for “behavior modification therapy.”“The Deal” cannot simply erase the many cases Frank and Joe have solved, nor will it allow their suspicious nature to ignore problems. Every action anything like an investigation puts them at odds with the Bayport Police Department, in particular one Officer Olaf.So when Frank finds himself the victim of a bank robbery, and Joe forced to be one of the robbers, trouble begins. And the Hardy’s find a deep secret in Bayport that no one wants to even talk about. There is someone called The Red Arrow. If you cross this person, you become marked with his sign, a red triangle on legs. And any trouble you find yourself in then, people will do nothing about: not the Police; not anybody…This latest reboot leaves me with mixed feelings. I have a full set of the blue hardcovers from the late seventies, and well over 100 of the excellent Hardy Boys Casefiles. I even have a few original adventures from the earliest printing of the Hardy Boys series. I have liked every reincarnation. Of course, since Franklin W Dixion is a “house name”, the books vary in quality, some writers forgetting parts of the “official ingredients.”This last set is written in the first person, alternate chapters written by Frank and Joe personally. The teaser for the next book seems to indicate that this will be the norm. I don’t think this style really suits the stories. Now the tale itself is rather good, a secret operator that has been at it for a long while with the Authorities (and Fenton Hardy!) well aware. It is just the rapid switch back and forth between the brothers who have their own peculiarities makes the story a trifle hard to follow at times.And in this first book, the many characters that usually populate the Hardy Boys Universe is limited to Aunt Trudy (Aunt Gertrude, I presume), Fenton Hardy, Laura Hardy (now a Real Estate Agent). Then there is Officer Olaf and Police Chief Gomez who as far as I remember are new. (In the teaser for the second novel familiar character Chet Morton appears.) So I sum up like this: Story-wise I’d give it four stars. The format is much less thrilling. Still, I’ll give it a shot.Quoth the Raven…

It definitely has a different tone than the Undercover Brothers. I just wish it had more jokes and the brothers teasing each other. They're boys, right? Now, the four brothers I have had to live with aren't like that, but when there are two brothers like Frank and Joe, who have been through EVERYTHING and more together, they know how to tease the daylights out of each other. Or at least I would think so.That said, read the Hardy Boys book "Wanted". It is definitely one of my all-time favorites.

Well this new series isn't what I was hoping for in the Hardy Boys books but it's not the worst of them out there. The one thing that annoyed me about the undercover brothers was how young, cocky, and down right whiny they seemed. The books weren't bad but the stories were weak at best and you couldn't really connect with the characters. Luckily in the new series they seem to have gotten rid of the more annoying character flaws in the boys but they still don't really reflect the Hardy Boys to me. As far as story goes I am with a lot of the other reviews nothing is explained well it absolutely drives you crazy because it makes no sense. As far as the cops not liking the Hardy's no stretch of the imagination there. The police in many of the series resented the boys' involvement. Also just look at the Casefiles for how many times they were falsely arrested or hunted down by the authorities. The plots are a bit weak in this series so far I hope they get better. I had hopes that this series would have brought forth the good writing that was in the Digest and Casefile series. They were roughly the same length but at least they had some meat to them. So in short not bad but don't set your hopes too high obviously no one is trying too hard with these books, which is a shame they could really help bring them back.

I'm old fashioned. Didn't care for the revised version of the Hardy boys.

My 10 year old grandson, who does not love to read, loves this series. We have it with the kindle version. I slow the reading down and he follows the story as it is read. He’s “read” several books this way but especially loves the Hardy Boys.

I love the story to this book.Frank and Joe retiring from detective work? Yeah right that will the day.Honestly, I like how the were after the Red Arrow, the secret organization, and how they had to help their worse high school enemy. I really enjoyed this book and think everybody should try to read it.

Got to chapter 3 on disk one and it was no longer readable in any player.

Thank You

Great book

I wanted to give this 5 stars but the beginning was a bit confusing

They delivered a wrong book with totally different subject and price.. disappointing

I really love the relaunch of the Hardy Boys series. They fleshed out Frank and Joe more, which I think is a good thing. It is fun and entertaining, if you love mystery and detective stories of that sort. ^^

Its good