#80 The Roaring River Mystery (36th Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: 1984
Published: Wanderer Books (1984-1987), Minstrel Books (1987-199?)
Author: Karl Herr III
Other Hardy Boys by Author: #70 The Infinity Clue, #72 The Voodoo Plot, #78 Cave-In (aka Cave-In!)

Plot: While the Hardys are out on Lake Algonquin canoeing around, they witness another canoer get ambushed by a bunch of masked men who try to steal the canoer's life jacket.  Why do the unknown men want the life jacket?

Then, after the boys get back to Bayport with the canoer, Ollie Fernandez, who was attacked on the lake, Fenton Hardy calls and tells the boys that he needs them in Washington for help on a case that he's working on.  So, when the boys get to Washington they learn that a bank has been robbed of a million dollars, a number of securities from a foreign government that were in the bank for debt repayment to the US government, and a diamond ring has been stolen.  But, what is even interesting is that the thieves didn't bust in through the front door, or even the back door of the bank!  Instead they came in through a tunnel that leads across the street to "The Sports Center", a sporting goods store.  Is there a connection between the bank and "The Sports Center"?

Then the Hardys head up to the Allagash Wilderness, in Maine, to join Ollie Fernandez and his crew on their trip to run the Roaring River.  But someone has been stealing the life jackets from the group, and the jackets all came from "The Sports Center"!  What's the connection?

Review: (2009)
Of course, I did notice a few spelling errors in the text of the Wanderer edition (which I believe were fixed in the Minstrel editions, but I can't check since I don't have a Minstrel copy of the book right now), plus in Chapter 19 there is a section where it feels like the ghost writer (who is accredited to Karl Herr III) was asked to rewrite the parts of the chapter, since the author wrote that Ollie and his maintenance crew and equipment left with the forest rangers in a truck, but then a few pages later, when Frank and Joe are searching the floors of the cottage that they are vacating, Frank finds the stolen money and securities, and then all of a sudden Ollie pops back in filling dates of when Ollie and his crew came up to the cabin and when the gang of crooks was most likely at the cottage.  So, it is a little strange how Ollie seems to be in the truck, and yet at the same time he is back at the cottage.

Otherwise, I found that this book has some interesting continuity with the short story "Whitewater!" from 'The Hardy Handbook: Seven Stories of Survival' (North American title)/'The Hardy Boys Survival Handbook' (British title), since in "The Roaring River Mystery", Chet is just learning how to run the rapids, whereas in "Whitewater!" the Hardys had run the Chatooga on the Georgia/South Carolina border with Tony Prito and Phil Cohen.  So mention of Chet not knowing how to run the rapids seems to line up with everything about the character from his introduction in "The Tower Treasure", since I seem to recall that Chet did paddle a canoe in "The Mystery At Devil's Paw", but he hasn't done any river rafting.

It was interesting to see Fenton Hardy working on a case again (considering that all the recent Undercover Brothers have Fenton Hardy retired and doing absolutely nothing) even though Frank and Joe once again solved the case for him.  Even in Chapter 2 we got to see Laura Hardy and Aunt Gertrude, and Aunt Gertrude even asks the boys to mow the lawn and do more chores around the house (none of that is ever asked in the Undercover Brothers series---why is that series still in print and the Digests/Casefiles aren't?).

There was even some friendly competition between the Fernandez rafting team and the rival rafting team led by Brian Schmidt, right down to the point where the boys thought that the Schmidt team had sabotaged their canoe, causing it to sink, along with possible stealing the life jackets from the Fernandez camp.

And we actually saw a gang that had more than 1 member.  So it was interesting to see how the gang sent a person to try and find out where Fenton Hardy was staying in Washington and spoil his disguise, while another gang member turned out to be an ex-ranger, but was posing as a ranger, and still there was another member who was a criminal wanted around the world, and then there were other unnamed members all trying to hurt the Hardys.  Unfortunately, I didn't like the fact that the Hardys ended up capturing one of the people who brought them in on the case.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Review (2020): I really can't say more than what I said 11 years ago when I reviewed this book.  It was a great story, and an interesting mystery, although as I mentioned 11 years ago, I didn't like that Director, the head of the gang, was someone who had brought the Hardy's in to the mystery in the first place.

Rating: 8 out of 10

[tomswift2002]

Oh, and The Roaring River Mystery was the last Hardy Boys book fully written and edited under the purview of the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  While Lilo Wuenn would continue to edit the series until #85 The Skyfire Puzzle, with #81, The Demon's Den, she was an editor for Simon & Schuster during the book, even though The Demon's Den, The Black Wing Puzzle & The Swamp Monster had been commissioned under the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  So with The Roaring River Mystery we are saying good-bye to the Syndicate's full control on the series, and it was the last book to be written by a Stratemeyer family member, as Karl Herr III was the great-grandson of Edward Stratmeyer.

Another interesting thing, is that for some reason, The Roaring River Mystery, while it was #78 in the Armada line in the UK, Angus & Robertson never published the book for some reason.  So the Wanderer Hardcover edition is one of the scarcer Hardy Boys hardcovers out there, as, unlike the other Wanderer Hardy Boys (except for Sky Sabotage which was also not released by Angus & Robertson), it doesn't have a foreign hardcover edition.  So if people are looking for just hardcovers for their collections, this is one that is hard to find.

[MacGyver]

Nice review! The Roaring River Mystery is one that I do recall fairly well, as I remember liking this one quite a bit as a kid. I remember Ollie being the main contact for The Hardy Boys in this book and the opening scene with him getting ambushed. And the bit about the connection with the sporting goods store and the bank- I remember all that too. This one is a well written, Interesting story.
    And as a big fan of The Hardy Boys Survival Handbook (I grew up with the Collins hardcover version so I'm more used to this title than the American title), I like that connection between the stories as well.