#119 Trouble At Coyote Canyon (29th Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: April 1993
Publisher: Minstrel Books (1993-1999?)
Author: Unknown as of July 2022

Plot: The Hardys kick up plenty of dust and danger ... hot on the trail of a sagebrush saboteur!

Frank and Joe saddle up for action as they take aim at a band of mountain marauders.

The Hardys are headed into some rough and rugged country -- a week-long ride through the wilderness outside Durango, Colorado. They've signed on with an outfit called Teen Trails West, and they're about to get a taste of just how wild the West can be. Someone's leading the riders down a crooked trail ... straight into an ambush!

An old secret lies buried in the mountains, and a modern-day gang of outlaws is ready to protect it at any cost. In a land of faded jeans and fancy boots, flying fists and blazing guns, the Hardys are determined to bring the renegades to justice. The showdown is set ... the lines are drawn ... and the stakes are as high as the Colorado sky.

[tomswift2002]

Review:  Page 25 Frank clearly states that the Hardy's are from "Bayport, New York". 

I've read Trouble At Coyote Canyon quite a few times since borrowing it from the library back in the late-90's (actually I bought that copy when the library discarded it and it's the one I'm currently reading).

This book might've been written by the same author that wrote Wipeout, as it's mentioned that the co-owner (it's a husband-wife that own it) of Teen Trails knows Doug Newman from childhood and Newman recommended the Hardy's after they solved the case in France.

Of course it's interesting but reading this book now years after the Undercover Brothers ended I can see the seeds of what would become one of the worst tropes of the UB's: reusing the same characters, but just changing names.   Now then in the 90's the authors didn't fall into that trap but I find it interesting how in Coyote Canyon there's a Hollywood brat, and a few other character traits that would reappear constantly in the UB's.

I just finished the Murder House Trilogy and I could swear to tell the truth in a court of law that the characters were exactly the same in the three books as the characters from Bayport Buccaneers & Feeding Frenzy, just with different names.  Exact same character traits and personality but with a different name.

[tomswift2002]

It's funny, but Trouble At Coyote Canyon seems to be extremely similar to I think the 2016 Adventure book Showdown At Willow Creek where the Hardy's are on a horseback excursion.  Aside from the third/first person perspectives, the stories are very similar.

[tomswift2002]

I finished the book yesterday.  It was more interesting than Danger In The Fourth Dimension, although the crime kind of felt like an afterthought.  I felt there was more that the author could've done, but instead the Hardy's tangled with one guy from a gang of grave robbers, and then the rest of the gang was captured off-screen (the cover image is from the last chapter). 

When I think of The Crimson Flame, Without A Trace or The Sign of The Crooked Arrow, which took place out west and were the Hardy Boys meet Bonanza or meet The Rifleman, Trouble At Coyote Canyon really doesn't live up to this books.  It's more an adventure story and reminds me of the Hardy Boys Adventures where it always seems like the mystery is an afterthought and is wedged in not that well.

At least there was a subplot about the daughter of the movie director and how she was angry that her parents sent her on this excursion.  That's something you don't get in HBA: a sub-plot.
Rating: 5.5/10