A Crime For Christmas

[tomswift2002]

It's December.  For most Hardy Boys fans that means its time to read "The Mystery of Cabin Island" (1929) and "The Mystery of Cabin Island" (1966). 

But for others it means that it is a time to check out the other Christmas adventures that Frank and Joe have had over the years. 

So lets travel back in time to 1988, and to another Hardy Boys book that dates itself to a point.  While the book itself does not date itself to a year, it does date itself to a particular month and day. 

When Same Peterson, the chief of the New York Police asks the Hardy's to come to New York find a couple of cat burglars who want to steal the Crown Jewels of Sarconne that are to be on display at the Met to celebrate Sarconne's 500th anniversary as a country.  (In the book Sarconne seems to be most likely based on France.)  Chief Peterson also asks the Hardy's to bring along a few of their friends who are their age to help in the investigation, since the only thing that is known about the cat burglar team, and it is not even known for sure, is that one of the cat burglars is a teenager.  It is also known that the burglars are operating out of the Winslow hotel.

So Frank and Joe invite Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin to join them at the Winslow in order to scout out possible father-son teams who might be the cat burglars.  But on the way to meeting the Hardy's Nancy and Bess decide to do some shopping, which includes stops at Bloomingdales, Macy's and Chocolate Revelations, where Bess manages to charm one of the guys working in the store to give her a chocolate crown.  And just as they are crossing the road to meet up with the Hardy's someone steals Bess' crown.

Frank and Joe, who are on the opposite side of the street, manage to get Bess' bag back with her crown safe, but unfortunately the thief gets away in the busy New York Christmas Shopping Crowd.

Then at the Winslow the Hardy's, Nancy Drew and Bess meet a rather mysterious guy who calls himself "John".    A little while later "John" sneaks in Nancy and Bess' window and asks them and the Hardy's to help him sneak out of the hotel.

But just as they are leaving the hotel a detective from a government agency stops them and tells them that they are under arrest for attempting to kidnap Jean-Claude, the Crown Prince of Sarconne!

Review:

It is really interesting how the author of this volume managed to have, essentially, 3 different plot lines running within the book, with 2 of the plotlines dealing with the Crown Prince, and the other plotline, mostly acting as a B plot for the book, tying in because the crooks in that plotline want the Crown Jewels. 

Also it is amazing just how jealous Joe is in this book over Jean-Claude's affections towards Bess.  You have to remember that in the Casefiles universe Iola died in "Dead On Target", and in this book, "A Crime For Christmas", the author sets Joe up in the position of being the lover who has to fight for Bess' affection while she is "on Cloud 9" with her Prince Charming.  Not to mention that the author then introduces Fiona Fox who is also vying for Joe's attention---and the photo's and negatives that he has been taking of father-son and one father-daughter combo.

This is a really great book and the plot runs over the course of about 6 days.  We know for a fact that the book ends on December 21, because the author has the characters find out the information about when a shipment of chocolate crowns goes out.


Rating: 9.0 out of 10.

[hardygirl847]

Sounds good! Glad I found it on Ebay! I will have to read it asap!

[hardygirl847]

Just finished the book and really enjoyed it. I am still not a huge Nancy or Nancy/Frank fan but it was good. The boys need more of the focus but it was written by ND's author. Anyway, wish I could have help Joe with his little chocolate problem!! lol Yum!

[the Gray Man]

I just finished the Hardy Boys Casefiles #5 Edge of Destruction where they first meet Sam Peterson who is running for mayor.  I guess this answers the question of whether or not Sam won the mayoral race since he is still Chief in A Crime for Christmas.

[Bigfootman]

I wonder if Sam Peterson appeared in any of the Nancy Drew Files books, as some of them took place in New York.

[MacGyver]

That's cool- I had forgotten that Sam Peterson shows up in both The Hardy Boys Casefiles and the Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: Supermysteries ('88) series. A common character! That would be really neat if he showed up in the Nancy Drew Files as well.

[Judah-Ben-Hur]

I read this over Christmas break, It kept the quality of the first of the series, my only complaint being that the Hardy Boys didn't share the POV nearly enough. Nancy, I love you, I'd probably send Ned running for his money, but my goodness If I hear you talk about "Do I have feelings? What about Ned? His eyes..." one more time, I'm going to pull a Joe-at-the-ice-ring.
Also Joe falling in Chocolate? Hilarious.
I just love how the Super mysteries (probably due to the extra length) spends time developing the characters.

[MacGyver]

I don't know if the books ever go quite as much into Frank and Joe pondering their feelings- but to be fair, I can think of at least a few times that they do.
I've heard fans complain that the Supermystery series is general is aimed more at Nancy Drew fans, but I love both The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and this is definitely one of my favorite series to read. (Though of course, I love all the book series for both in general.)

[Judah-Ben-Hur]

Well, the complaint is more aimed at not being in their head as much as in book 1. Though I would like to see a bit more brotherly feelings between the two.
So far I enjoy this series the best, but I too also like Nancy and the Boys too much to choose.

[MacGyver]

lol- I'm never good at choosing favorites.

[Judah-Ben-Hur]

neither am I, but I know that I'm totally against UB books , I've been trying to get through this one for forever.

[MacGyver]

I will admit that the Undercover Brothers books are my least favorite Hardy Boys series by far- it took me literally years but I finally got around to reading the first book in the series (though I've owned all of them for quite a while, as I was getting them as they were released)- and sadly, I was disappointed with Extreme Danger from the first few paragraphs on the first page! That's a pretty bad omen for a spinoff series. I got through that book but it didn't really leave me all that enticed to read the others. I won't go into all my issues with that series here, but briefly I will say that I really am very upset that there is cursing in the books at times and I really don't like how way out of wack and out of character The Hardy Boys generally seem to be in these books. And on top of all those issues, the mysteries don't seem to be quite on the same caliber that they've faced in the past and also tend to get repetitious.
    Nonetheless, I have been told they are some good stories in there and I'm glad to glean whatever good enjoyment I can out of them. I think the graphic novels based on them are probably the best thing to come out of the UB universe because I do enjoy those quite a bit.

[Judah-Ben-Hur]

Agreed on every front!

[tomswift2002]

I just pulled out this old classic to re-read, and I happened to look at the copyright date: November 1988.  Wow!  25 years!  Just last year we were marking the Casefiles 25 anniversary (and the ND Files in 2011) and now the first spin-off is 25.  Age-wise, these are Classic Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew stories now.

[MacGyver]

Aw, man- when I think about how old the books are, I gotta be reminded of my own age- lol. It's all good though. Yeah- these are classic Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books.