#57 Terror On Track (32nd Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: November 1991
Publisher: Archway Paperbacks (1991-2000) No Digital version as of February 2024
Author: David Robbins
Other Hardy Boys by Author: None

Plot: Never drop your guard in a fight -- or you may get dropped for good!

Deadly Chase!

Frank and Joe join Andrew Driscoll, the son of a professor, on a critical cross-country train ride. They are acting as decoys in a top-secret plan to transport a deadly virus from San Francisco to Chicago. In the wrong hands, the virus could unleash a biological catastrophe of unimaginable proportions!

But the plan goes haywire when Andrew disappears and the shocking truth about the Hardys' mission becomes clear. The boys begin to suspect that they are the ones ticketed for disaster, and that the end of the line -- for both them and the virus -- is dangerously near!

[tomswift2002]

Review: I first read this book around 1995 when I borrowed it from my Jr. High School's library.  I enjoyed it back then, and I seem to remember that I had read the original version of The Mystery of the Flying Express (1941) around the same time and I found Terror On Track was a more interesting book.

Reading this book in 2024, in the first few chapters, it's hard not to think of the escape of the Covid Virus from the Wuhan Lab in 2019, and all the talk and evidence of creating modified super bugs (gain of function) from low class bugs like the common cold.  Terror On Track, deals with a scientist who has, in the midst of creating vaccine for a virus that has caused a lot of illness and deaths in Asia, developed a more powerful, super version of the bug.  However, different drug manufacturers want the vaccine formula so that they can market it and take the profits! 

In 1991 this was sort of science fiction, but at the same time there was some reality to it.  However, since 2019, Terror On Track has really taken a different twist.  I'm not sure if this book could've been written now because of that.

[NZone]

This book contains one of the few instances of Frank being a flirt:

"Can't you watch where you're going?" a female voice demanded.

Joe stepped back. The woman he'd rammed in to seemed to be in her early twenties. Her eyes were green, and her honey blond hair just touched her shoulders. She wore a green blouse and black jeans. Hanging from her slim neck was a camera fitted with a small tele-photo lens. At her feet was a brown suitcase. "Sorry," Joe said.

Frank picked up the girl's case. "Forgive my brother," he said. "He's the family klutz."

The woman glanced from Joe to Frank. Her full lips relaxed into a slight smile. "Your brother?" she said.

"I'm Frank Hardy, and, yes, he's my brother, Joe." Frank nodded toward Andrew Driscoll.
"And this is our friend Andrew."

"Pleased to meet you," the young woman replied. "I'm Talia Neiman." She gestured at the platform. "I'm taking the Chicago train. Are you traveling or just meeting someone?"

"We're on the Chicago train, too," Frank said.

"Maybe we'll bump into each other again," Talia said with a grin. "Or maybe-hey, Frank, want to catch a late lunch in the dining car?"

Frank's eyebrows went up. "Sure."

Talia gave him a smile. "Good. Long train trips get so boring without someone to talk to. Shall we say three-fifteen?"

Frank nodded, and Talia set off across the platform and disappeared in the crowd.

"If I knew that's what happened on long-distance trips, I'd take the train more often," Andrew said.

"Some people are just born lucky," Frank told him with a grin. "Come on, let's find our compartments."

. . .

Picking up a towel, Frank went out into the corridor to wash his face in the lavatory. He filled the basin and splashed cool, refreshing water on his face.

"Beautifying yourself for lunch?" Joe asked Frank as he returned. He was still a little jealous. "She should have asked me. I'm the one who bumped into her." He gave his brother an evil smile. "Funny how she looks a little like Callie Shaw."

At the mention of his girlfriend's name Frank's head snapped around. "You know, she does." For a second he felt slightly guilty.

"But don't worry. I won't tell Callie that you go out with strange women whenever her back is turned. You can trust me, Frank." Joe was enjoying teasing his brother.

"It's just lunch," Frank protested.

"Sure. Just think of Callie while you're out enjoying your lunch. And maybe you can spare a thought for Andrew and me, while you're putting pleasure in front of business."

[tomswift2002]

Reading Terror On Track shows the datedness of the book.  At one point Frank and Joe receive a telegram when the train pulls into a station, and then there are a few times where they want to update Fenton, however they can't because they do not have a cellphone, whereas nowadays in 2024, they probably both would have had a cell (along with the conductor, who after Andrew Driscoll is found murdered, says that he needs to let the engineer know to radio the station ahead to have the police waiting to come aboard and conduct an investigation) that they could have called Fenton, even if they had entered an area with no cellphone reception for a little while, rather than waiting.  (Of course there were cellphones in 1991, but outside of big cities the reception was spotty. Also they were expensive.)

[MacGyver]

This book contains one of the few instances of Frank being a flirt:

That is pretty funny!

[MacGyver]

Reading Terror On Track shows the datedness of the book.  At one point Frank and Joe receive a telegram when the train pulls into a station, and then there are a few times where they want to update Fenton, however they can't because they do not have a cellphone, whereas nowadays in 2024, they probably both would have had a cell (along with the conductor, who after Andrew Driscoll is found murdered, says that he needs to let the engineer know to radio the station ahead to have the police waiting to come aboard and conduct an investigation) that they could have called Fenton, even if they had entered an area with no cellphone reception for a little while, rather than waiting.  (Of course there were cellphones in 1991, but outside of big cities the reception was spotty. Also they were expensive.)

Honestly, that's one thing I like about reading these books now. It's nice to be back in a world for a bit where it doesn't feel like technology has taken over everything.

[tomswift2002]

Honestly, that's one thing I like about reading these books now. It's nice to be back in a world for a bit where it doesn't feel like technology has taken over everything.

Well, with the Casefiles, considering that the last book was published nearly 4 years before 9/11, besides technology there's a lot of things that were done in the series that if the books were written now wouldn't fly.  I just read Chapter 13 of "Terror On Track" and the killer was able to get a gun onboard.  And there was no mention of metal detectors or other terror-deterrents mentioned at any of the train stations.  So it is interesting to see how much has changed in just 30 years.  But so much has changed with 9/11 and 2020, that Simon & Schuster even allowed Grosset & Dunlap to take the Detective Handbook (which was part of the 1980 court settlement that G&D was able to keep the print rights too) out-of-print a few years ago because the basics of police and detective work have had to change majorly because of 9/11. 

[tomswift2002]

I finished the book last night.  One thing I noticed with the cover and text is that in the text the train has a caboose, but the cover doesn't have a caboose.  I'm not sure when Amtrak last used a caboose on their trains (and the train's colors on the cover are clearly Amtrak's colors, but Amtrak is never mentioned in the story), however, even here in the 90's Canadian trains were very rarely using caboose's because of changes in the train regulations in the 80's because of new technology that eliminated the need for a caboose.  So I don't know if the author was simply unaware or what, or he just took author's liberty to have a caboose on the train...

Anyway, the mastermind turned out to be Frank's flame, but the author kind of dropped the ball on her.  The author didn't want the Hardy's to beat up a woman so he kind of jumped through hoops to get Frank to be in possession of her gun.

Also, in the end, while it was about the serum, the author clearly did not think that Talia might've had bigger plans to sell the mutated virus for even more money.  She could've name dropped selling it to the Assassins, however, that never occurred.  Instead she put it in a bomb wired to the train's water boilers.

Rating: 7/10

[CalvinKnox]

The caboose was something that annoyed me when I read this book back in the day.  Passenger trains basically have never had cabooses or brake vans in North America. It's easy to take a lot of liberties with railways in fiction it seems, like how in one of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Super Mysteries, the train is operating like a cruise ship rather than an actual railway.

(on a sidenote, Canadian National was using a caboose still in Ottawa Ontario a couple years ago, but now said caboose is sitting in the Montreal trainyard.