Mystery Train (31st Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: November 1990
Published by: Archway Paperbacks (1990-2000?)
Author: Unknown as of November 2021

Plot: NANCY DREW joins some of the best minds in the mystery field to help crack a famous unsolved case: the theft of the Comstock diamond. A private train will take the elite group from Chicago to San Francisco, the same route taken by the jewel thief fifteen years before. But someone is out to derail the search for the clues and send Nancy on a chilling cross-country ride to terror.

MEANWHILE...

FRANK AND JOE HARDY climb on board, lured by the promise of a $25,000 reward for whoever finds the diamond. Instead they find trouble: an open-air fist fight atop the speeding train, a runaway locomotive, and a beautiful gem of a different kind -- actress Kate Harkins. Joe is dazzled by her entrance -- and stunned by her exit. The teen detective suspect she's been kidnapped, and it soon becomes clear they've all been ticketed for disaster.

Review:  I remember first reading this book in the Fall of 1994.  This was actually the first Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys SuperMystery'88 that I ever read, and was one of the books to get me into the Files-Casefiles universe.

Of course, in 2005 Her Interactive adapted Mystery Train into the 13th game in the Nancy Drew computer game series, called Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon[/b].  Of course, like they were doing at the time, Simon & Schuster forced Her Interactive to put the game in the Undercover Brothers universe, so Frank and Joe are agents of ATAC in the game, rather than working on their own, or having help from the Network, like they do  or possible do in the book Mystery Train

[MacGyver]

I didn't realize that video game is based on Mystery Train. Neat! I like this book pretty well. There is something intriguing about a mystery set on a train. Maybe it's just that Agatha Cristie made it iconic with her book Murder on the Orient Express. (There is an episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries that has a similar title, with Frank, Joe and Nancy all solving a mystery on a train- "Mystery of the Avalanche Express".)

[tomswift2002]

We learn that Frank enjoys reading "Forensic Medicine Today" as 'light' reading.  Joe mentions that he'll stick to his car magazines for 'light' reading.

[tomswift2002]

It's interesting, but in Mystery Train Frank is written as being the really impulsive brother, whereas Joe has more restraint.  Like at the beginning chapter 10, the Hardy's found an anonymous note in their berth, that accused Joe, but it was Frank who was the hot head.

[tomswift2002]

I finished Mystery Train last night.  While the plot of it is similar to Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon (although to be fair, it's been about 15 years since I last played the game, so I'm going by memory and some online reviews for this part) the stories do diverge quite a bit and aside from Nancy, Frank and Joe, all the other characters are either completely different, or there are characters missing, such as in the book, the trip is started by a husband-and-wife team looking for a diamond stolen 15 years earlier, while in the game the trip is organized by a single person.   

Also, the book, as per the cover, features a train pulled by a modern diesel engine, whereas the game has a steam engine.  Also, while the book is more about finding a lost diamond, the game is more about unravelling a ghost story and finding a lost mine (The mine does play a role in the book, but it's role is really minor).

Also, with the mine, the author left the mine's location open ended, as at the end of the book the diamond gets thrown over a cliff and into the San Francisco Bay, and Frank, Joe and Nancy figure that the diamond is needed to solve the riddle of a map that most likely leads to a lost mine that the crooks were hoping to find.  Unfortunately, no one bothers to go searching for the diamond, and the author has Frank basically say that the mine will remain lost for years, until someone finds the diamond on the bottom of the bay.  The ending reminded me of some of those TV shows where, there's a chase and then because the producers didn't plan for a multi-part story, the item that was being sought is either thrown away somehow, or the characters run up against a wall, such as a building having collapsed over an old vault, so the item will remain hidden for x-number of years.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.  It was an interesting chase story, but the characterizations were off and the ending felt a bit rushed.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Published: November 1990
Published by: Archway Paperbacks (1990-2000?)
Author: Unknown as of November 2021

Plot: NANCY DREW joins some of the best minds in the mystery field to help crack a famous unsolved case: the theft of the Comstock diamond. A private train will take the elite group from Chicago to San Francisco, the same route taken by the jewel thief fifteen years before. But someone is out to derail the search for the clues and send Nancy on a chilling cross-country ride to terror.

MEANWHILE...

FRANK AND JOE HARDY climb on board, lured by the promise of a $25,000 reward for whoever finds the diamond. Instead they find trouble: an open-air fist fight atop the speeding train, a runaway locomotive, and a beautiful gem of a different kind -- actress Kate Harkins. Joe is dazzled by her entrance -- and stunned by her exit. The teen detective suspect she's been kidnapped, and it soon becomes clear they've all been ticketed for disaster.

Review:  I remember first reading this book in the Fall of 1994.  This was actually the first Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys SuperMystery'88 that I ever read, and was one of the books to get me into the Files-Casefiles universe.

Of course, in 2005 Her Interactive adapted Mystery Train into the 13th game in the Nancy Drew computer game series, called Last Train To Blue Moon Canyon.  Of course, like they were doing at the time, Simon & Schuster forced Her Interactive to put the game in the Undercover Brothers universe, so Frank and Joe are agents of ATAC in the game, rather than working on their own, or having help from the Network, like they do  or possible do in the book Mystery Train

In the last PC game, where you able to call Frank and Joe, they say that ATAC changed it's name to the Network:


https://imgur.com/JlBhEHx

[tomswift2002]

That ATAC changed happened in like #30 of the series.  But the name change seemed to be more because the Undercover Brothers series was discontinued, and Simon & Schuster were telling Her Interactive that Frank and Joe could no longer be connected with ATAC or anything UB.  So they just picked "The Network", even though the series is still in the UB/Girl Detective universe.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

That ATAC changed happened in like #30 of the series.  But the name change seemed to be more because the Undercover Brothers series was discontinued, and Simon & Schuster were telling Her Interactive that Frank and Joe could no longer be connected with ATAC or anything UB.  So they just picked "The Network", even though the series is still in the UB/Girl Detective universe.

Even though the Network is Casefiles? They didn't just use that throughout the game series, weird.

[tomswift2002]

Even though the Network is Casefiles? They didn't just use that throughout the game series, weird.

Between 2005 and 2013 when the Undercover Brothers series was out, Simon & Schuster seemed to force all the licensee's to have Frank and Joe be a part of ATAC or some other UB related aspect.  The only thing that seemed to escape that were Grosset & Dunlap's reprints of 59-66 of the Mystery Stories and the second Hardy boys PC game (although that one seemed to, oddly, tie-into the 1950's Disney Mickey Mouse Club serials).  Even the Papercutz comics started as just "The Hardy Boys", but with the 2nd issue the series was rebranded to the UB branding—-which made Ocean of Osyria unique in the UB line as there is no ATAC and the story reads more like Revenge of the Desert Phantom than a UB story. 

Even the stand-alone Hardy Boys game The Hidden Theft[/i] (PC/Wii) had ATAC shoe-horned into it, even though the game was based on The Tower Treasure which had absolutely nothing to do with ATAC. 

[MacGyver]

That's cool to know that the video games officially acknowledged a name change for ATAC to The Network! I wonder if that means we can officially say the UB/Adventures books happen in-between the originals/Digests and Casefiles?

[tomswift2002]

That's cool to know that the video games officially acknowledged a name change for ATAC to The Network! I wonder if that means we can officially say the UB/Adventures books happen in-between the originals/Digests and Casefiles?

I haven't played any of the post-Deadly Device games, but in terms of the Network in the games, it's suppose to be the ATAC agency, but getting rid of any mention of teens being the investigators in its name.  The Network in the Files-Casefiles was a Top-Secret Intelligence Agency that just tolerated the Hardy's, Nancy & Tom Swift; also Fenton Hardy had worked for them in the past, but he was not a founder of the Network. 

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I haven't played any of the post-Deadly Device games, but in terms of the Network in the games, it's suppose to be the ATAC agency, but getting rid of any mention of teens being the investigators in its name.  The Network in the Files-Casefiles was a Top-Secret Intelligence Agency that just tolerated the Hardy's, Nancy & Tom Swift; also Fenton Hardy had worked for them in the past, but he was not a founder of the Network.

When did Tom Swift work for the Network?

[MacGyver]

Tom Swift didn't work for The Network as far as I know but he helped Frank and Joe with a case The Network was involved in too in the Ultrathrillers books.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Tom Swift didn't work for The Network as far as I know but he helped Frank and Joe with a case The Network was involved in too in the Ultrathrillers books.

I sort of remember one Tom Swift series that he was dealing with the Black Dragon? It was a preview chapter in one of the Casefiles books.

[tomswift2002]

The only time that Tom Swift interacted with the Network was in The Alien Factor.  And the only times that Nancy has interacted with the Network is in the SuperMystery'88 series such as Buried in Time, Best of Enemies, etc., otherwise the Network only appeared in the Hardy Boys Casefiles series.  Really, the Casefiles was the one main series that was tied into the majority of the other Files-Casefiles series, as the Hardy's and aspects of the Casefiles appeared in the SuperMystery'88 series, and in the Nancy Drew Files #45 Out of Bounds has Nancy remembering working with the Hardy's and the drug mystery of Dangerous Games.  And then of course you had the Ultra Thrillers which saw the Hardy's meet Tom Swift (of the Archway series) twice (if you want to know that one, read Time Bomb where Frank and Joe also meet the Black Dragon), and get sent by the Network to investigate the Swifts.