#37 Danger Zone (31st Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Danger Zone
Published: March 1990
Publisher: Archway Paperbacks (1990-1996?)
Story Arc: MUX Part 2 of 2
Author: Peter Lerangis
Other Hardy Boys by Author: Casefiles #9 The Genius Thieves, #13 The Borgia Dagger, #18 A Killing In The Market, SuperMystery'88 A Crime For Christmas, Shock Waves, Buried In Time (co-authored with Larry Mike Garmon)

Plot: Top-secret missions are always a risky business.

A Crisis Hits Home

When an ultrasecret project takes Fenton Hardy to Massachusetts, the Hardy Boys come home one afternoon to find that kidnappers have taken their mother.  The kidnappers demand to talk to Frank and Joe's father within twenty-four hours---or the boys may never talk to their mother again!

The key to the case is at Prometheus Computing, where Fenton is in charge of security.  The company's latest product is a highly advanced computer chip sure to shape the future of artificial intelligence.  But to protect the chip and their family, the Hardy's will have to rely on their natural intelligence and courage.  They must find their father and infiltrate the DANGER ZONE before time runs out on their mother!

Review:  Back in January I had posted the https://www.hardyboyscasefiles.com/forums/index.php?topic=3065.0Favorite MUX Book? poll, and so far only 4 people have voted in it, and we are tied at 2 votes a piece for Street Spies & Danger Zone.  That was meant to be a lead in for my review of Danger Zone that I meant to get up by early-February, but other things got in the way, and I never got to writing it. 

First, I want to start with the cover of the book.  Ever since Danger Zone first hit bookstore shelves in late-February 1990, this book has easily had one of the best Hardy Boys covers ever!  Frank and Joe in an alley with a barbed wire fence behind them, and commando troops in military fatigues surrounding them, two of whom have gas masks covering their faces---this was a book that people wanted to read!  Plus we see that the logo for the series has been given a new color scheme of teal and burgandy, which really pops off the background.  For the first 50 books, between Dead On Target and Power Play we would see different color schemes for the logo, before the series really stuck with what is now the classic Casefiles logo color scheme of Orange and Yellow.  After Power Play there would only be 8 more books that had the logo in a different color scheme than the classic two-tone Orange/white (one was even single color) before the Classic Casefiles logo was retired with #104 Wild Wheels.

Now onto the story---this is Part 2 of the MUX Story Arc, and, unfortunately it feels like the middle part of a storyline that was never finished.  Before I go any further, the end was really left open, so it seems as if there were plans to bring MUX back, but that never happened and MUX never appeared in A Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys SuperMystery'88 or A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller series, and so far it doesn't look like they'll make an appearance in the Nancy Drew Files or River Heights.  So MUX was only around for two stories, and both stories were written by different authors, so I'm not sure what happened, since it's clear that this wasn't a case of the organization being created and written by only one "Franklin W. Dixon" and when they left the series no one else wanted to deal with the storyline. 

Anyway, in this book, Frank and Joe feel like they are 23 and 22 in this book, and this book takes place sometime after The Paris Connection & Running On Empty, since The Paris Connection takes place in April, and Running on Empty takes place sometime in the late-spring/summer time.  Danger Zone is set in the fall, late-September, when the weather is still warm, and the NFL has started playing it's season. Both Frank and Joe are planning on watching the NFL match-up on TV, with their friends Biff Hooper, Phil Cohen and Chet Morton and had gone to the store for snacks, but then discover that someone has punctured their van's tire.  Also, it seems that by this point, Fenton Hardy has forgiven Frank and Joe for what happened in #27 Nowhere To Run (in Countdown To Terror Fenton was still sore at Frank and Joe, and then he kind of disappeared for the next ten books, with his only major appearance being in Blood Money, which he also wasn't too happy with how Frank and Joe put themselves in so much danger) and paid for some top of the line shocks for the Hardy's van!  After changing the tire, the Hardy's get home to find both the inner front door (which the Peter Lerangis notes is not unusual for a warm late-September afternoon), but also the front screen door is left open.  After dropping their shopping bags on the front walk, Frank and Joe run into the house and discover that it's been ransacked and their mom and Aunt Gertrude are nowhere to be found.  That is until they hear some thumping coming from the den, where they discover that their Aunt Gertrude has been placed in a bag, that was tied around her, in a closet.  After getting Aunt Gertrude out of the bag, she tells them that their mother has been kidnapped or worst killed!   

Then Frank and Joe get a call from the kidnappers who demand that Fenton Hardy be back home in 24 hours to receive a phone call from them.  So, after getting Aunt Gertrude to bed, Frank and Joe go to Fenton's office to discuss what's happening.  Unfortunately, neither one of them knows where in Massachusetts Fenton is, and the only one who knows is Laura Hardy!   All of a sudden they hear noise and voices down stairs, and rush down to find Chet Morton, Biff Hooper and Phil Cohen looking at the mess in the living room.  Frank and Phil head for the garage where Frank pulls out an electronic microphone detector, and asks Phil to scan the house with it.  Pretty soon, Phil discovers that the house has been bugged, and Frank and Joe realize that they are dealing with professional crooks!  So it is off to Massachusetts for Frank and Joe, while Phil, Tony and Chet agree to stay with Aunt Gertrude and guard her and the Hardy house while Frank and Joe go looking for their father in Massachusetts.  Of course they don't think to check their van for any microphones or homing devices, so shortly after leaving they discover that they have a Buick trailing them, and no matter how many twists Frank takes, the Buick manages to find them.  Finally Joe locates the tracker, but as soon as he does, the Buick decides to try to run them off the road! 

Anyway, Danger Zone is a really action-packed story, and it would be nice to see it as a movie sometime.  It's interesting how Laura really plays a role in this book, and we see just how much Fenton loves his wife and he drops everything to go rescue her.  Fenton and Laura's relationship was never really explored as much as it was in this book. 

With the MUX story arc, it almost seems as if the arc was being designed to be opposite to the Assassins arc, where the boys team-up with the Network on most of their Assassin cases, while the two MUX stories had the Hardy's team-up with their father to battle a corporation that was interested in technology theft and corporate espionage, while the Assassins were more a terrorist organization.   While I find Street Spies was not a strong lead story for MUX, Danger Zone really put MUX on the same footing as the Assassins, and it makes me wonder if the editors thought that having two similar arcs running through the whole series might've been a bad idea.  Hard to say with just two books, even though it is clearly spelled out in Danger Zone that the criminals in both books were only low-level bosses, and the Hardy's never really battled one of the upper bosses of the MUX.  But just like the Charity story arc came to a close with a wide opening in #29 Thick as Thieves (and in a similar way I found the second book to be the better of the two), the MUX story arc comes to a wide open close in Danger Zone. 

Danger Zone was also the final solo Hardy Boys book that, as of April 2021, Peter Lerangis is known for writing.  After Danger Zone, he still had Buried In Time to come out in August 1990, but otherwise this is it for Peter Lerangis as Franklin W. Dixon.  And did he ever manage to go out with a bang!   Danger Zone has gone down in history as a Classic Hardy Boys book, and a favorite amongst fans, and is easily in every fans Top 20 Casefiles lists (for me it's #12).

Rating: 9.5/10 (lost a point because it's a cliff-hanger with no resolution)

[MacGyver]

Great review! I have not read this book (or any other Hardy Boys book) in quite a long time but I do still remember the opening and closing scenes pretty well. I remember Joe grumbling to Frank about missing the second half of the game at the start of the book and Chet speaking with a mouth full at the end reminding Fenton of the voice scrambler.
    Yes, this book has a lot going for it. It is definitely one of the coolest covers and I do like that it also has The Hardys dealing with MUX again. I feel like maybe the publishers either didn't feel they got enough response from the MUX books or that it was just too much to have them and the Assassins, and it was better to just have one ongoing villain group.
   I particularly love that all the main chums are in this book and that Fenton, Laura and Aunt Gertrude all have roles in it. Does Callie show up? She would pretty much make the gang complete (outside of Casefiles-specific characters like Vanessa or Liz Webling or The Gray Man.)
    One of these days I would love giving the entire series a reread in order. Maybe that will be a summer goal when I've read all the other books I still have to read at home.
   

[tomswift2002]

I think she's mentioned, but I can't find the part.  But otherwise, she doesn't appear.

But Con Riley makes an appearance in the book.

[MacGyver]

Well, that's still a pretty full roster. With the Casefiles, it seems it was a bit rarer to see the chums appear- or to have a mystery primarily take place in Bayport, for that matter.

[SkyWarp]

I just finished reading this one and adding the information to the encyclopedia.  I agree that this is probably one of the best casefile books.  I could see this as a movie or even a tv series opener. 

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

This was one of my favourite books