39th Anniversary Review #69 The Four-Headed Dragon

[tomswift2002]

The Four-Headed Dragon
Published by Wanderer Books (1981-1987), Minstrel Books (1987-1997?)
Author: Laurence Swinburne
Other Hardy Boys by Author: #73 The Billion Dollar Ransom, #76 Game Plan For Disaster

Plot: Detective Sam Radley is found incoherent, wondering the woods on the Morton farm just outside Bayport. Then Sam is kidnapped from his hospital bed. Meanwhile, his boss, the famed PI, Fenton Hardy is away, investigating an attempted sabotage on the Alaskan pipeline, so it's up to Fenton's sons, Frank and Joe to solve the mystery of Sam Radley's disappearance.

The brothers' investigation leads them to a supposedly deserted mansion, on the neighboring propriety to the Morton's farm. Frank and Joe discover a deadly weapon which has been captured by the criminal cult, behind the would-be sabotage in Alaska. Their only hope now is to uncover the mystery hidden within the mansion.

Review: I first read this book back around the summer/fall of 1994.  As I recall it was the first paperback Hardy Boys book that I read.  And I remembe that as a child, the artwork for the Wanderer book, which I had, really appealed to me with the mansion and the 4-headed dragon coming out from behind it. Of note: the artwork for Frank and Joe reappeared on the 1981 Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Sleuths! Volume 1 cover, where the Hardy's had been cut out of the artwork for Dragon and enlarged to appear on that cover. (The image of Nancy Drew and the house she's looking at is from the Nancy Drew book The Twin Dilemma, with the artwork flipped, so that Nancy is on the right on Sleuths!, while on the original Dilemma she is on the left.)

This is the first book by Laurence Swinburne, and while he gets the characters right, there are other things that he gets wrong, like the Sleuth being covered by a tarp and just tied up to a regular dock.  What happened to the Hardy's boathouse?  Sure there was Hurricane Gertrude in this book, but the boys went to check their boat just as the hurricane was making landfall, so it wouldn't have been destroyed at that point (and there is no mention of the boat house being destroyed). 

As for the Sayer mansion in the book, I think Swinburne had either visited or had heard of the Winchester Mystery House in California, and decided to have a similar house in Bayport!  As a kid I hadn't heard of the Winchester House, but this time I got the reference.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House).  He even put in how the lady who died, Abby Sayer in the book (Sarah Winchester in real life) had a thing for the number 13.  As people know, the number 13 is associated with a ton of superstitious things, and its heavily associated with the dark arts. 

This book is also the one Hardy Boys that brings Sam Radley to the front.  Sam Radley is a private investigator who works for Fenton Hardy on a number of occasions, but also handles his own investigations.  Now then, Sam is a character who was only introduced in the 1960's and appeared in the Grosset & Dunlap series from #'s 39-66, and he was incorporated into the revised books, so he is remembered fondly by a number of people nowadays, because, just like Jack Wayne (who was another 1960's  addition to the series) he appears in so many of the G&D books (I think Sam Radley debuted in Mystery of the Spiral Bridge (1964), but it might've been as early as Mystery of the Chinese Junk). 

But, really, The Four-Headed Dragon is the one book that focuses on Sam and we learn a lot more about him and his wife, Ethel.  Unfortunately, Sam wouldn't appear in many more books after The Four-Headed Dragon, as he was essentially dropped from the series once Simon & Schuster re-started the series in 1987 (I know that he appears in #85 The Skyfire Puzzle, but then I don't recall him appearing after that, or in any other Hardy boys series, except the Animated series). 

Another thing to be aware of is that The Four-Headed Dragon is a story of its time.  There are numerous mentions of people escaping from behind the Iron Curtain, which divided Europe into 2 sections between 1945 and 1991, with the countries on the Eastern side being "satellite" countries of the Soviet Union (i.e. East Germany) and adopting communist ideas.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Curtain).  So, after The Mystery of Cabin Island (1929) & The Submarine Caper, and a number of early Casefiles/SuperMystery books, this is one of a few Hardy's that can be dated to a specific period of time.

Of course, I also found that at times it felt like I was reading a story for the 1977-79 Nancy Drew Hardy Boys Mysteries TV series. 

Rating: 7.5/10

[MacGyver]

Nice review! As I've said before, I haven't read any of The Hardy Boys books in a long time and I don't recall much on this one. I will say that this is one title where I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a literal 4-headed Dragon in the book, as I understood the title as a kid. I do recall it being a pretty good story regardless though. The Wanderer cover art is definitely my favourite. 

[tomswift2002]

Yeah the author really didn't explain the whole symbolism of the Four-Headed Dragon.  Before this re-read I was thinking it probably had an Asian connection, but there was no connection.  All we really got was that it was a political force in the Iron Curtain that opposed communist regimes and wanted democracy, and the people in the organization wore a ring with a Four-Headed Dragon design.