#28 Countdown To Terror

[tomswift2002]

The Hardy Boys Casefiles #28
Countdown To Terror
Published by Archway Paperbacks
Published in June 1989

Plot:  In 1917 Halifax, Nova Scotia was rocked by the blast of the largest man made explosion before the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  Now an international terrorist organization wants to do the same thing to Halifax and a city in the United States.  But, with only days to go in their plan, the organization discovers a minor hitch in their plans: for the Hardy Boys have come to Halifax to pick up some papers for their father needed for an investigation he?s working on.  And now, it is time for the organization to unleash their most diabolical plans ever.

Review:  After reading the very weird and hard to follow ?Disappearing Floor? (1940), this book was really great, and really kept me guessing up until the end.   But, I must warn you, ?Countdown To Terror? probably takes the award for most violent Hardy Boys book ever.  If the book was to be turned into a movie, I?m pretty sure that the movie would receive an R rating just for all the violence.  There were 3 separate times that Frank Hardy had  a gun (2 times he had a pistol that he shot off, and then the third time he fired an Uzi), while Joe wrestled with a guy and between the two of them managed to pop of a couple of shots from the bad guy?s pistol, right into the front headlight and tire of a car that was trying to run the boys down, plus at the end of the book Joe also fires a couple of rounds from an Uzi. 

SPOILER WARNING



Plus, I found this interesting, since the boys were battling the Assassins in the book, Frank and Joe never once thought to call the Network to see if the Gray Man and the rest of his associates knew anything.  Infact, the Network and the Gray Man weren?t even mentioned once in any flashback scenes.

Also interesting with this comes from the point of view that this book was written in.  It was third person, but the author kept following Frank, making Joe a minor ensemble character in the book.  Sure Joe was in quite a bit of the book, but not as much as Frank.  Plus during a lot of the major action scenes, the author kept to Frank, while he/she had Joe either trying to break through a door, or make sure that a friend of theirs got away from the danger zone safely, essentially removing Joe from the scene, while the author concentrated on Frank disarming a Fellawi loop bomb (one of the bad guys in the book was named Omar Fellawi, a bomb maker who was known for never following the correct procedures to make a bomb) or running around trying to distract a car that was chasing the boys.

But another thing that I found interesting, and could possible be a clue to who the author of the book was came from how much information was in the book about the 2 previous Casefiles, ?Trouble In The Pipeline? and ?Nowhere To Run?.  NTR was mentioned on the first page, and then again referenced later in the book, while TITP wasn?t mentioned till, I believe, page 125 or somewhere at the back of the book, and the author had the terrorists explain how the Assassins wanted to get the Assassin who was captured in ?Pipeline? out of prison and were planning on holding an American city hostage, and by demonstrating that on Halifax.  But the author also had the leader explain how there had been so much terror strikes in the world recently and just by that the author was maybe trying to tell people that what occurred in NTR was more than what was said and done in the book.  Maybe the events of NTR, while seeming to be just random events that the Hardys came across, were actually organized by the Assassins and run by MUX. 

So, I think it might be pretty safe to say that, right now until more evidence is unearthed as to who wrote Casefiles 26, 27 and 28, that those 3 Casefiles were written by the same author, and form a tiny story arc that is not  a strong an arc as in the way the Bayport Corruption story arc is.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Quotes:

Page 87: ?They shoot guns and leave bombs around.  That?s not normal---unless Halifax has a shortage of dead people and they?re drumming up business.? ?Frank Hardy, while investigating a suspicious box in a warehouse that contains a coffin

[Bigfootman]

I liked the book, but it ruined Trouble In The Pipeline for me.

[Olivia]

Sound really good (didn?t read the spoilers). The best part is that I actually own it.

[tomswift2002]

I liked the book, but it ruined Trouble In The Pipeline for me.

I haven't read Pipeline in about 10 years, so I may have to get it out and re-read it.