manwithanagenda's review
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
Bayport, affluent city by the bay, is also riddled with crime. The people of Bayport and other surrounding towns have become the victims of a new crime syndicate. There is a pattern. Honest citizen is accosted on the street by some cad asking the time or a light for a cigarette. Moments later the citizen has passed out on the street and awakens without their wallet or purse. Renowned detective Fenton Hardy is on the case. Meanwhile, he sends his sons to some podunk backwater to answer a complaint from a mechanic who is in possession of a car that was abandoned at his shop.
Teenage sleuths the Hardy Boys snicker at the uneducated mechanic, known as Slo Mo, and sneer at the incompetant police chief of the village. They don't get any help from either men, but discover for themselves a broken watch strap and a tie pin in the form of a crooked arrow. These are important clues! They are in high spirits when they return home, but Aunt Gertude is unimpressed. The boys and their father would do better to help out cousin Ruth at her ranch in the Southwest. She's in such trouble!
It shocks nobody that all three incidents are inextricably linked. Who is the perpetrator? Is it a "bad" indian?
'Sign of the Crooked Arrow' is the first of three Hardy Boys ghostwritten by Andrew Svensson and he, or the Strathmeyer who wrote the outline, uses a lot of bad tropes to illustrate Native Americans. We even have a "good" indian help the boys on the ranch and be suitably dumbfounded and impressed at their great skills so superior to his own.
Urgh. I thought we were past this. This title was later revised, but who knows if they took out what they should have.
Hardy Boys
Next: 'The Secret of the Lost Tunnel'
Previous: 'The Secret of Skull Mountain'
Teenage sleuths the Hardy Boys snicker at the uneducated mechanic, known as Slo Mo, and sneer at the incompetant police chief of the village. They don't get any help from either men, but discover for themselves a broken watch strap and a tie pin in the form of a crooked arrow. These are important clues! They are in high spirits when they return home, but Aunt Gertude is unimpressed. The boys and their father would do better to help out cousin Ruth at her ranch in the Southwest. She's in such trouble!
It shocks nobody that all three incidents are inextricably linked. Who is the perpetrator? Is it a "bad" indian?
'Sign of the Crooked Arrow' is the first of three Hardy Boys ghostwritten by Andrew Svensson and he, or the Strathmeyer who wrote the outline, uses a lot of bad tropes to illustrate Native Americans. We even have a "good" indian help the boys on the ranch and be suitably dumbfounded and impressed at their great skills so superior to his own.
Urgh. I thought we were past this. This title was later revised, but who knows if they took out what they should have.
Hardy Boys
Next: 'The Secret of the Lost Tunnel'
Previous: 'The Secret of Skull Mountain'
dlcomrie's review
4.0
Abby says: This book was very adventurous, interesting and exciting. The crooked arrow was one of my favourite Hardy Boys books so far!
b00kr3vi3ws's review
3.0
When I first read Hardy Boys, I think I was in class 5, I had such a crush on Frank Hardy. I liked the brainy one over the brawny one and that sums up my first impression of Hardy Boys.
In their late teens, Frank and Joe Hardy take after their detective father Fenton Hardy. Frank is the older of the two and has more breakthroughs in the cases because he is the brainy one. Joe is the younger brother who more often than not is useful when things get hot and they need to fight their way out.
Like Nancy Drew, the books in the The Hardy Boys series re written by ghostwriters under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. And yes, the earlier books were better than the latter ones.
In their late teens, Frank and Joe Hardy take after their detective father Fenton Hardy. Frank is the older of the two and has more breakthroughs in the cases because he is the brainy one. Joe is the younger brother who more often than not is useful when things get hot and they need to fight their way out.
Like Nancy Drew, the books in the The Hardy Boys series re written by ghostwriters under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. And yes, the earlier books were better than the latter ones.
judythereader's review
1.0
In general, I recognize the time period in which these books were created, but the racism in this book was just too overwhelming.
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