#58 Spiked! (32nd Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Published: December 1991
Publisher: Archway Paperbacks (1991-1997, stand alone title), (1999-2001, part of The Hardy Boys Casefiles Collector's Edition #3), Aladdin Paperbacks (December 2005, hardcover) No Digital
Author: Unknown as of March 2024

Plot: When the competition gets hot---someone's bound to take a fall!

Thirst for danger!

A vacation in Laguna Beach, California, together with a big time volleyball tournament in the sun and sand, have put the Hardy's in seventh heaven.  The action promises to be hard and fast and fun---so what could possible go wrong? Nothing...until the games begin and murder takes a hand!

The Frosty Soft Drink Company is sponsoring the event to promote their new sports drink, Hi-Kick.  But the contest has turned into a tournament of terror,  and one competitor has already paid with his life.  Frank and Joe Will have to high kick their game into high gear---before the cost of a cold drink puts someone else on ice!

Review:  I remember first reading this book around 1995-96.  I remember at the time that Baywatch was a pretty hot TV show (and it also featured for Frank Hardy actor-Parker Stevenson) at the time, and even in 1991, Baywatch had just hit it big in the syndication market, so looking at the cover of Spiked! it looks like Simon & Schuster was maybe aiming for the Baywatch crowd.

[tomswift2002]

I forgot that Spiked! was the second book in the January 1999 The Hardy Boys Casefiles Collector's Edition Volume 3 book.  That book was later, I believe, released exclusively through Borders in the US in a hardcover edition that used the file folder cover art of the last Hardy Boys Mystery Stories books, including the blue spine, in December 2005, under the Aladdin imprint, using the artwork from #152 Danger In the Extreme.  To date, that 2005 printing is the last American printing of any Casefiles in physical format.

Also, Spiked! never received a UK release in an omnibus release, so in the UK it was only release as a standalone book in October 1994.  (Also, as of this writing, the hardyboys.co.uk website is inactive, although it can be found with the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive minus all the book cover scans.)

[MacGyver]

I forgot that Spiked! was the second book in the January 1999 The Hardy Boys Casefiles Collector's Edition Volume 3 book.  That book was later, I believe, released exclusively through Borders in the US in a hardcover edition that used the file folder cover art of the last Hardy Boys Mystery Stories books, including the blue spine, in December 2005, under the Aladdin imprint, using the artwork from #152 Danger In the Extreme.  To date, that 2005 printing is the last American printing of any Casefiles in physical format.

It looks like some still are in print. 
http://www.braillebookstore.com/Hardy-Boys-Mysteries

[MacGyver]

Also, seeing that made me think- when was it that Dollar Tree was re-releasing select Hardy Boys Casefiles?

[tomswift2002]

It looks like some still are in print. 
http://www.braillebookstore.com/Hardy-Boys-Mysteries

Also apparently the Casefiles have received "New" books such as #167 'Trouble Times Two', #168 'Castle Conundrum', #169 'Ghost of a Chance', #170'Kickoff To Danger', and #171 'The Test Case'. 

[MacGyver]

Also apparently the Casefiles have received "New" books such as #167 'Trouble Times Two', #168 'Castle Conundrum', #169 'Ghost of a Chance', #170'Kickoff To Danger', and #171 'The Test Case'. 

Yeah- they mislabeled those. It's cool to know you can still get some Hardy Boys books in Braille though.

[SkyWarp]

Also, seeing that made me think- when was it that Dollar Tree was re-releasing select Hardy Boys Casefiles?

I don't recall Dollar Tree reprints, but doing a quick search I do see that some of the secret files may have been released at Dollar tree some time ago. 
There were Dollar General reprints of the casefiles a long time ago.  I think I had gotten them all and then gave them away in some sort of contest on this site.

I don't recall when they came out, but I do believe they came out in two waves.  I don't recall which ones came out in which wave, but I believe these are the ones that were republished for just one dollar each.  If we looked through the casefiles pages in the encyclopedia, you could probably find the ones that have a 1 dollar price tag and that would tell us for sure. 

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[MacGyver]

I don't recall Dollar Tree reprints, but doing a quick search I do see that some of the secret files may have been released at Dollar tree some time ago. 
There were Dollar General reprints of the casefiles a long time ago.  I think I had gotten them all and then gave them away in some sort of contest on this site.

I don't recall when they came out, but I do believe they came out in two waves.  I don't recall which ones came out in which wave, but I believe these are the ones that were republished for just one dollar each.  If we looked through the casefiles pages in the encyclopedia, you could probably find the ones that have a 1 dollar price tag and that would tell us for sure. 

#2
#4
#45
#49
#84
#93
#96
#105
#115
#116
#117
#126

Okay- thanks. It's been some years ago; I couldn't remember if it was Dollar Tree or Dollar General. Now that you say this though, I'm pretty positive it was Dollar General because they had the DG style Dollar symbol in the top right corner Incorporated into the artwork. I used to own some but I don't think I have them anymore. And I can confirm that Dollar Tree is currently selling 4 books each of The Hardy Boys Secret Files series as well as the Nancy Drew Clue Crew series.

[tomswift2002]

So in Chapters 4 and 5 we get the cover image scene---however, the artist got the characters wrong.  In the book, the two girls were on the far side of the net, and the girl with the long hair was the one that served the exploding volleyball!  Also Joe was holding a volleyball.  The artist kind of make the Hardy's look like Parker Stevenson and David Hasselhoff from Baywatch, right down to their red swim shorts.

Also, in Chapter 5 the author seems to be trying to introduce some possible Cold War tension by introducing a character who immigrated from Czechoslovakia 20 years before the story.  Of course, when Spiked! was released in late-November 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was only a month away on December 26, 1991.  Of course, the author was most likely writing Spiked! around December 1990/January 1991, shortly after the Berlin Wall fell and East and West Germany were reunited on October 3, 1990, so the author was probably aware of the collapse of the Soviet Union that was occurring. 

It's kind of interesting to see how the Hardy Boys Casefiles and the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys SuperMystery'88 series dealt with those Cold War topics more than the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories. Just from what I can think off hand, in the Mystery Stories you had The Four-Headed Serpent[/u] as being the one book that really dealt with Cold War Tensions.  There were other books that seemed to allude to it, or used fictional countries (and the Tom Swift Jr. series did that alot) to represent Soviet countries.  And ever since, the rest of the Casefiles & Mystery Stories never really dealt with any international event like the Cold War, or in the early-2000's, none of the Mystery Stories tied into the War On Terror that was happening back then.  And since then the newer series have really avoided tying into more modern political things.

[tomswift2002]

In some ways Spiked! is like the Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mystery Wipeout.  Obviously concentrating more on volleyball than surfing.  As well as Mystery Story #96 Wipeout.

[tomswift2002]

So I got up to Chapter 11...and I found the action just died.  The author seemed to run out of gas at this point.

[tomswift2002]

I finished the book today.  After Chapter 11, the author figured that they kind of needed two sets of criminals that were kind of working together and kinda not.  I think they were trying to go for some of the criminal gangs that were seen in the G&D Hardy Boys Mystery Stories where occasionally you'd have one gang member doing their own thing at the same time.  Unfortunately it didn't work. 

Also, reading this in 2024, the plot kind of reminds me of the whole stupid plot of the Undercover Brothers Foul Play and the murder by hot dog plot.  Except in this case it was murder by energy drink! 

Rating: 5.0/10