31st Anniversary Review: The Outlaw’s Silver (1981)

[tomswift2002]

Published: 1981
Publisher: Wanderer (1981-1987), Minstrel Books (1987-1996)
Author: Jim Lawrence
Other Hardy Boys by Author: #16 Revised, 17 Revised, 19 Revised, 37, 38, 39, 58, 59, 60, 62, 74 (Lawrence in also better known as being Victor Appleton II, having written the majority of the New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures)

Plot: After receiving a phone call and a letter from the Outlaw of the Pine Barrens, the Hardy's start searching for the treasure mentioned by both. 

Review:  So I am now entering the Simon & Schuster era of the Mystery Stories, since 2005.  Of course in 1981 this book was issued in both paperback and hardcover versions.  The paperback is the easiest to locate as the hardcover was mostly sold for libraries, but they are out there. 

Of course, I've got to say, the 1991 Minstrel cover has got to be the contender for most boring Hardy Boys cover ever.  It is essentially Frank and Joe skydiving against a yellow/green background. 

I'm upto Chapter 4.  I've really forgotten a lot about this book since I last read it in the late-90's/early-2000's.  Callie is even driving her parent's white station wagon, which she uses to take her and Frank, Joe and Iola and Biff and Karen to a concert.  (It's interesting how in Casefiles #30 Biff is dating Jeanne, so there was some changes to the characters between the two series, not to mention but Callie drives a Nova in the Casefiles that she owns.). In the Mystery Stories usually Callie and the girl's are the ones being driven, but by 81 I guess the Stratemeyer Syndicate was trying to update the sexual stereotypes in the books to where you see the modern idea of men and women being equal, vs the earlier books where it was the guys driving the girls.

[MacGyver]

Skydiving being an important part of the plot is about the only thing I remember from this book. This is one of those Hardy Boys books I read once years ago as a child. Maybe one day I'll go through and reread the series but there are so many other books I've never read that I'm trying to read now.

[tomswift2002]

Just so that people are aware, there has never been a digital edition of The Outlaw's Silver.  As of March 2030, the only legal way to read this story, and 68-108 in the series is to locate a physical copy.

[MacGyver]

No worries there for me. I'm not big into digital versions of books in the first place. I've got The Hardy Boys books in physical format. They've never run low on battery power and I can read them without electricity.

[tomswift2002]

So I finished The Outlaw's Silver over the weekend. 

Going into this book, for some reason I thought that it took place in Maine, not New Jersey!  But Silver takes place in New Jersey.  So that was interesting. 

The boss's name, El Diablo, Spanish for 'The Devil' had an interesting name, that seemed to indicate a really bad guy, I found he didn't live up to his name.  And overall I found the book didn't live up to what it was trying to do, and lead to a fairly generic story.  It read like the rest of Jim Lawrence's Hardy Boys from Grosset & Dunlap, but it just didn't have anything special about it that makes it stand-out. 

It's interesting that Callie drives in the beginning and Iola is the one who gets the concert tickets, a change from the books of the 60's & 70's, but otherwise, there was nothing unique.

Rating: 6.5/10

[DickRoylet]

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[tomswift2002]

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Compared to what appeared on the book, the painting was altered. 

[MacGyver]

Thanks for posting! Way cool to see the original artwork considered.

[DickRoylet]

Compared to what appeared on the book, the painting was altered. 

Or, maybe, just maybe, the artwork was damaged by FedEx. And the publisher had to green screen the background.

Kind of a shame, since the damaged portion of the art was the whole point.

[tomswift2002]

Or, maybe, just maybe, the artwork was damaged by FedEx. And the publisher had to green screen the background.

Kind of a shame, since the damaged portion of the art was the whole point.

Even with the damage, you rarely get the full picture on the cover.  They'll crop it, zoom into it.  And at times you get more of the painting
on foreign editions.  Take a look at the UK edition of "Endangered Species" on this page.
http://hardyboys.co.uk/history/casefiles.php