#82 The Blackwing Puzzle (36th Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

The Blackwing Puzzle
Published: 1984
Publisher: Wanderer Books (1984-1987) Minstrel Books (1987-1997?) no digital edition
Author: Unknown as of September 2020
Reading Level: 6.7

Plot: (from the 1990 Cover) High Adventure on the trail of a High-Tech spy ring!

Disaster Waits in the Wings

A series of rare butterfly specimens vanish into thin air... A top secret air force engine is stolen from a heavily fortified industrial plant...And most confounding of all, an eerie black-winged creature hovers over a haunted mansion.  THese are the pieces of THE BLACKWING PUZZLE---a sinister mystery that sends the Hardys flying into action!

Frank and Joe dodge firebombs, grenades and airborne assault in a bitter battle of wits with an international criminal mastermind.  There's danger in the air as the Hardy boys seek the key to the conspiracy: they must uncover the truth behind the bizarre batmanlike form before it sets out on a final flight to terror!

Review:  Interesting fact, this is the last Hardy Boys book to receive 3 cover art versions!  There was the 1984 Wanderer cover, a Minstrel cover in 1987 and then the final cover in 1990!

[MacGyver]

I find it interesting that the 1990 back cover actually directly mentions Batman as a point of comparison! 

[tomswift2002]

The author has the Hardy's calling Aunt Gertrude, Gertie in this book.  Reminds me of:

https://youtu.be/-PsmLDFaHEI

[MacGyver]

Oh, okay. I wasn't expecting that link at all. I thought perhaps you were going to mention how Fenton sometimes called Aunt Gertrude "Gert" on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.

[tomswift2002]

Again, am I ever finding this book really violent—-like early Casefiles violent.  At one point early on the author had the reader thinking that Fenton Hardy has been killed after someone threw a grenade at his boat and it looked like his boat had blown up!  (Reminded me of Endangered Species).  So it is interesting how, when I think of the Mystery Stories, especially the ones more commonly called "Digests", I usually think of them as not being violent in terms of explosives or gun violence, which I think can apply to most post-1987 Digests, whereas the pre-1986 books, dating back to The Tower Treasure in 1927, did feature really violent stories.  Whereas the after the post 1987 books, the books split; the Casefiles got the really violent stories until The Phoenix Equation/Time Bomb, and the Digests got the less violent stories (and after The Phoenix Equation most of the Casefiles were toned down to Digest level).

[tomswift2002]

Boy does the bad guy ever like grenades in this book and even setting traps with Molotov cocktails!

[tomswift2002]

So I finished the book last night.  The ending was kind of underwhelming, and it kind of felt a bit rushed.  The scrimshaw clue to Blackwing's treasure kind of felt shoe-horned into the plot, and, while it did lead to a treasure for the Hardy's, the clue that lead to the treasure felt like it was a last minute addition, and the location of the treasure kind of felt odd. Early in the story, and even just before the Hardy's found the treasure, it was said that the current owners of Blackwing mansion had had everything on the 3 floors had been stripped back to the studs and the basement even had had a little work done to it (not a lot, just enough to make it into a comfortable rec room), but then this scrimshaw stick is introduced with a map on it, that a scrimshaw artist had carved, and the Hardy's discover that it matches one of the panels in a room on the main floor of the house, a room that had apparently been stripped to the studs.  So the workmen and homeowners, never discovered the secret stairs in that room, and yet they left the original wood paneling just as it was so that the Hardy's could discover the secret stairs!  Ok!  That makes perfect sense.

Anyway, another interesting fact with The Blackwing Puzzle is that this was the final book to be issued using the Wanderer Arch-window design.  The Swamp Monster would be issued under Wanderer with a logo and style that was similar to the Be A Detective books 5 & 6.

[MacGyver]

It's really fun reading these reviews for the early Digests from the Wanderer years. I love all of the books but these early ones also still generally had 20 chapters and were longer in length than later books. And yeah- a number likely were a bit more violent than the later books.
   As to the Casefiles toning down some, I can see that to a degree. Though I will say I do recall the villain in #68 Rough Riding to be particularly vicious.
   Anyway- good review!

[tomswift2002]

Interesting fact with The Blackwing Puzzle: this is the final appearance of Jack Wayne, Fenton Hardy and the boy's trusted pilot.  He was later replaced by Jamal Hawkins as the Hardy's go to pilot.

I remember when In Plane Sight came out in December 2002, I was hoping that Jack Wayne would make a reappearance, since it seemed like such a good book to have him in.  Unfortunately, the author and editors decided to bring in Jamal Hawkins, and from there to the end of the series, Jamal appeared.

[MacGyver]

The character of Jamal Hawkins also helped give the series a bit more diversity as the only recurring African-American character if I recall correctly.