Hardy Boys Adventures #11 - Showdown at Widow Creek

[kosmicdust]

https://catalog.simonandschuster.com/TitleDetails/TitleDetails.aspx?cid=3456&isbn=9781481438773

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1481438778
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1481438778
Amazon CA: http://www.amazon.ca/dp/1481438778

Publication Date: February 2016

[MacGyver]

Nice! Thanks for the cover art. Right off the bat, it kinda reminded me of the Rough Riding cover (#68 in The Hardy Boys Casefiles), though it's not totally similar of course. It's just the bucking horse that made me think of it mainly.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Love the cover.

[kosmicdust]

Story blurb:

The Wild West hits the East Coast when Rutherford?s Annual Rodeo and Wild West Show arrives in Bayport. Frank and Joe are enjoying the show?s historic reenactments, rodeo events, and even an exhibition of the Rutherford family?s prize-winning horse, Hondo.

When the brothers catch several ranch hands trying to steal Hondo, they manage to stop it. Though very grateful for their intervention, the Rutherford family is now shorthanded for the cattle drive back to their dude ranch! So Chief Olaf ?volunteers? the Hardys to help out.

The brothers? long-dormant horse-riding skills slowly come back to them as they make their way down the quiet rural roads toward the ranch. But as they?re finally getting the hang of it, a group of dirt bike?riding cattle rustlers surround the herd?and take Hondo!

Will the Hardy Boys lasso the horse thieves?or will this be their final showdown?

[MacGyver]

Interesting- thanks for posting. Two things I noticed- first, why is there a Chief Olaf here? What happened to Chief Collig?
Also, it's interesting to see The Hardy Boys depicted as actually not automatically totally skilled at something. (In the previous books, they've had tons of horseback riding experience, so it's funny to see this book series mentioning it like an old skill they are having to brush up on again.)

[tomswift2002]

Chief Collig and Con Riley have not appeared in the series.  Instead we have had bumbling Olaf, first as a Detective in Book 1, then promoted to Chief in Book 2 after the Chief in Book 1 retired (and it wasn't Collig).  Think of Olaf as the Detective Oscar Smuff of this series.

But, is the series already running out of gas?  "Historic Re-enactments"?  I seem to recall that it was only in "Battle Of Bayport" that the Hardy Boys were involved with a historical re-enactment.

[kosmicdust]

[MacGyver]

Wow! It's always great seeing that cover art enlarged like that. Thanks as always, kosmicdust.

Chief Collig and Con Riley have not appeared in the series.  Instead we have had bumbling Olaf, first as a Detective in Book 1, then promoted to Chief in Book 2 after the Chief in Book 1 retired (and it wasn't Collig).  Think of Olaf as the Detective Oscar Smuff of this series.

But, is the series already running out of gas?  "Historic Re-enactments"?  I seem to recall that it was only in "Battle Of Bayport" that the Hardy Boys were involved with a historical re-enactment.

Thanks for the info on that, tomswift2002.
While I like seeing a throwback to good ol' Det. Oscar Smuff, I think I'd rather have just seen Smuff himself show up again rather than a new version. It's a shame that Chief Collig and Con Riley haven't appeared yet- I always enjoyed those characters appearing throughout the original series (and the later paperback Digests) and the Casefiles and graphic novels (well, only Collig appeared here that I recall) and so forth. Did both characters appear in the UB series?
    Oh, well. I guess we have Olaf to deal with now for some reason.
     I have kind of wondered about the series myself too, but it seems to still be chugging along. Still, it's sad to see how much both The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew sections have shrunk at the local bookstores. I got a copy of the most recently released book in the Adventures series, #9 in the series, and it was the only copy on the shelf. I definitely get the impression they are not selling as well anymore (at least not with the physical copies. Maybe they're doing better with eBooks though....)

[tomswift2002]

Well I just recently found out that non-grocery items are not selling as well in brick-and-mortar stores, but they are selling better online, whereas, at least here in Canada, for groceries people still prefer buying those at the store.

But here in Eastern Ontario the one Coles bookstore (which is part of the Chapters-Indigo chain) has stopped carrying Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew altogether.  I haven't seen even the Grosset & Dunlap books on the shelves in about 18 months (although I do see a few titles at Walmart, but they are only the paperback copies of the first 5 books in the Adventure series and the last 2 or 3 books in the Secret Files).  So I always pre-order my copies and just have them shipped to the store.

[kosmicdust]

This looks like nothing more than a reheated version of Rough Riding. Oh well. At least the links in the first post are now working, so get pre-ordering folks!

[Hardy Sleuth]

Did both characters appear in the UB series?

Yep, both Chief Collig and Con Riley show up in the UB series. And they can show up any time in the Adventures. Olaf is boring, not funny like Smuff, although they're both bumbling.

[MacGyver]

Thanks for the confirmation on that, Hardy Sleuth.

[Hardy Sleuth]

Thanks for the confirmation on that, Hardy Sleuth.

No problem.