Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #22-24: The Murder House Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Murder House Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#22 Deprivation House
#23 House Arrest
#24 Murder House

In #22 Deprivation House, the contestants to a new reality show, Deprivation House, have received death threats.  Frank and Joe join the cast to uncover who is behind the threats.

Most of the characters are not described well, and some of them have no descriptions at all.  They are introduced too fast, and it's very hard to remember any of them. This greatly took away from my enjoyment of the story.

A film star was murdered in this house.  I already know that this must be important to the entire trilogy even though it is a side note in this book. 

This isn't going to sound nice, but I kept thinking of the author as a hack writer as I read this book.  This book has poor descriptions regarding everything, and the story is not that interesting.

Despite the book's shortcomings, it is a decent book.

In #23 House Arrest, Frank and Joe think they can go home.  The culprit has been caught and is in jail.  But when more threats are made, the boys realize that someone else is sabotaging the show.  This is so shocking!

Actually it isn't.  That's how every single Nancy Drew Girl Detective trilogy plays out.  A culprit is revealed but is not the real culprit.  I knew this series would use the same flawed concept.  Argh!

This book is sabotage, sabotage, and even more sabotage.

Each time a contestant wins a competition, they must choose a privilege to take away from the house.  It's really dumb that Frank takes away the television privilege.  A network movie about the murder that occurred in the house is going to be on television, and the contestants have been looking forward to watching it.  Since stupid Frank takes away television, the boys can't watch the movie and will miss out on clues.  But of course that is what the author wants!

At the end of the book we find the culprit for the warnings and sabotage—at least most of it.  We learn that the culprit isn't responsible for everything.  There's yet another saboteur!

This book is also decent, but it's also kind of boring.

In #24 Murder House, Frank and Joe continue their investigation.

I knew early in the first book that one contestant had to be the daughter of the murdered woman.  The age of the contestants is exactly how old the daughter would now be.  By the end of the first book, I knew that daughter had to be one of two contestants, even though Frank and Joe have no clue that the murder has anything to do with the events in the house.  In the second book, I was almost certain which contestant was the daughter.  This was confirmed at the end of the third book.

This trilogy is unsatisfying because Frank and Joe don't figure out that the daughter is in the house until the last 20 pages of the final book of the trilogy.  Idiots.

This book was written in a bland fashion, and I felt no suspense at all.  I also never cared about any of the characters.  At the end of the final book, I couldn't remember which saboteur did what.  It's very confusing.

This trilogy is not good.

As I reached this point in the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series, I began to develop a deep disliking for everything about the series.  That disliking strengthened as I continued to read through the trilogies.