40th Anniversary Review: #64 Mystery Of Smugglers Cover

[tomswift2002]

Published: 1980
Publisher: Wanderer Books (1980-1987), Minstrel Books (1988-199?), Grosset & Dunlap (2005-2013, print & digital)
Author: Vincent Buranelli
Other Hardy Boys by Author: #20 The Mystery Of the Flying Express (1970 Revised), #22 The Flickering Torch Mystery (1971 Revised), #49 The Bombay Boomerang (1970), #51 The Masked Monkey (1972), #55 The Witchmaster's Key (1976), #56 The Jungle Pyramid (1977), #57 The Firebird Rocket (1978), #61 The Pentagon Spy (1980), #63 The Mummy Case (1980), #65 The Stone Idol (1981), #71 Track of The Zombie (1982), #75 Trapped At Sea (1982), #77 The Crimson Flame (1983)
Audiobook read by: Cam Clarke (Cassette Book Company; released 1985 on 2 Long-Play Cassettes, however, it appears that it was to be released in 1983)

Plot: Are Frank and Joe crooked?  A Bayport art collector who was sending a valuable painting to his brother in Florida, calls on the Hardy Boys to find his missing painting.  However, there is a complication: Frank and Joe are the number one suspects in the theft!  The art collector's secretary left a photo of Frank and Joe, saying that they were the mover's, who the secretary had hired on the art collector's orders.  Now it is up to Frank and Joe to clear their names and find the missing painting.

Review: I'm just starting this book.  It's been a few years since I read it so I remember that it is about a stolen painting and Florida, but otherwise that's about it.  But in the first 3 chapters, I'm getting the sense again that the author was maybe being inspired by Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy's performances on the 1970's Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries TV series and wrote Frank and Joe just like Parker Stevenson played Frank and Shaun Cassidy played Joe. 

[MacGyver]

I haven't read this in many years but I still remember Joe's ending line referring to Simon Bolivar and Biff adding to it saying the painting was liberated by Joe Hardy.
   And yeah- it stands to reason that some of the ghostwriters might have been influenced by the television depictions of The Hardy Boys. That's cool with me- it's part of the mythos. (It helps that I'm a huge fan of the '70s Hardy Boys show. )

[tomswift2002]

Well I just finished the book tonight.  I had forgotten that there were 3 parts to the same gang: the leader and then a poaching gang and a smuggling gang.  Unfortunately, the author didn't write the multiple gangs like in the older G&D's.  This one kind of felt like the poaching gang was added to pad out the book to 20 chapters.  The older books had it where the second gang felt more natural; this time it just felt tacked on to get the boys into the Everglades.

Rating: 6/10