Secret of the Red Arrow

[MacGyver]

If you can find any of those early '80s hardcover Wanderer titles, they're a pretty neat and somewhat rare collectible to come by. I think it's just with the Wanderer titles though- do you all know if there were ever any hardcover Minstrel books released for The Hardy Boys Digests books?

[SDLagent]

There were some large print Casefiles issued in hardcover as well.

[tomswift2002]

There were some large print Casefiles issued in hardcover as well.

Those were the Greycastle Editions.

But h only hardcover Minstrel/Aladdin book that I can think of is the 75th anniversary hardcover that was a Borders exclusive;  everywhere else just got the book in paperback.  And there ws also the Just-For-Boys hardcover printing of #95 Danger On The Air back in 1989.  But neither was issued with a dustjacket.

[MacGyver]

Okay- that's what I thought then. Yeah, I know about the Borders book and the Just For Boys book- cool collectibles, but not quite the same as the hardcover Wanderer books.

[MacGyver]

I saw this tidbit on the Hardy Detective Agency's page- according to the iTunes Bookstore site (I actually didn't even realize they had such a thing but I shouldn't be surprised- I'm pretty sure in this case, they're meaning E-books, rather than actual print copies)- anyway, apparently Secret of the Red Arrow is supposed to have 160 pages, so that's a pretty good-sized book. That sounds about like the length of the Digests books. I'm not sure right offhand how that compares with the Undercover Brothers books- the lengths for those seem to be kinda erratic from what I recall of flipping through them...

[Hardy Sleuth]

Clicked on the link there, thanks, MacGyver! All of the clues are shaping up in a very promising way! It was just noted that paper and ebook come out on the same day, not that the iBookstore sells print copies. The UBs vary, some are 176, some 160, some yet other length of pages.

[MacGyver]

I suppose it's safe to assume this book does not feature an appearance by Roy Harper...?

[SDLagent]

I suppose it's safe to assume this book does not feature an appearance by Roy Harper...?

That's the first thing I thought of too.

[MacGyver]

Amazon.com has a preorder page up for the eBook version of the title and it lists the release date for Secret of the Red Arrow as February 5, 2013.

[JoeHardyRocks]

I didn't know where to put this, but the unamed third and fourth books in the series release dates are June 4 and October 22, 2013 according to Wikipedia. So 4 the first year!

[SkyWarp]

The boys look awfully young on the cover of the first book.  In fact, they look like they may be 10-12 years old or younger.     The cover does look nice though.

[JoeHardyRocks]

.... Still crossing my fingers that they'll be at least 15 and 16... How old are the clues brothers or secret files or whatever they'll have running at the same time as this? Surely they won't be too similar in age?

[tomswift2002]

The boys look awfully young on the cover of the first book.  In fact, they look like they may be 10-12 years old or younger.     The cover does look nice though.

It's hard to tell.  Of course Joe has curly hair on the cover which seems to be a throwback to the Joe of the late-80's.  https://www.hardyboyscasefiles.com/series/casefiles.php?book_no=033

[MacGyver]

I was wondering about this too. If they want to go back to the Original series, then Frank should be 16 and Joe at 15. However, I don't know if the boys on the cover of this book even look that old. I would prefer they stick with the standard ages of Frank at 18 and Joe at 17- the perpetually young teenagers who are also old enough and mature enough to do things most kids can't  (i.e. fly around the world, solve mysteries, take on bad guys ranging from pursesnatchers to terrorists, etc.)
But ages aside, the cover does look quite cool- it's actually a little reminiscent to me of a scene in The Vanishing Thieves, where Joe accidentally falls overboard from a ship while his hands are tied behind his back to an anchor! (One version of the British Armada paperback even used this scene for the cover.)
I'm definitely interested and excited to read the new Hardy Boys series- hopefully it will manage a good balance of the classic elements from the Original series (by this I mean the Revised versions) that encapsulate the core essentials of who The Hardys are, along with a blend of the newer technologies and cultural setting that the Casefiles and Undercover Brothers series brought, with a focus more on the basic fundamentals- Frank and Joe help their detective father on cases and wind up solving some mysteries of their own as well. I'd prefer they do more of those stories before having them get mixed up with any more government agencies and so forth... though it will be interesting to see if any Casefiles or UB-specific characters and organizations make appearances.... or for that matter, any chums or characters found mainly in the Original books. (i.e. Oscar Smuff, Jack Wayne, Sam Radley, etc.)

[SDLagent]

The boys look awfully young on the cover of the first book.  In fact, they look like they may be 10-12 years old or younger.     The cover does look nice though.

How can you tell how old they are by this cover? I can't really see enough to tell their age. Do you have an HQ image I'm not seeing?