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A review by manwithanagenda
The Sign of the Crooked Arrow by Franklin W. Dixon
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'