Brad Forrest #8 London Adventure and Final Thoughts

In Brad Forrest #8, London Adventure, a weather receiver goes missing along with the scientist who created it. Brad helps Scotland Yard find the missing scientist and weather receiver.

Brad also does newspaper work in this book.

The criminals try to kill Brad and his friend by shutting them in a room and feeding carbon monoxide into the room via a hose.  The criminals don't mess around in the Brad Forrest books!

This story is a bit convoluted with a few too many characters.  A missing scientist has two names, his real name and his alias, which adds to the confusion.

This book is not very interesting, and I didn't enjoy it.

Biff Brewster, Sandy Steele, and Brad Forrest are three very similar series with essentially the same premise.  The boys all have blond hair, and each boy has adventures with different friends, often in exotic locations, throughout the series.  It's odd that three different publishing companies had a series with the same premise during the same time period, and none of the series did well.  We know the series didn't do well since many of the books in all three series are difficult to find in the secondhand market.

I tried to determine which series is the best with no obvious conclusion.  I'd like to say that Biff Brewster is the best since it is a Grosset and Dunlap series with great cover art.  The Biff Brewster series has some excellent books, but the travelogue aspect is too strong in a number of the books, causing those books to bore me.  I was actually glad to be done with Biff Brewster by the time I finished the last book.

I didn't like the first Sandy Steele book at all, but I greatly enjoyed #2 through 6.  I was disappointed after I finished #6, since I thoroughly enjoyed the bulk of the set.  I finished Sandy Steele wishing there were more of them.  For that reason, I'd like to say that Sandy Steele is the best of the three series.

Brad Forrest starts out in a ridiculous fashion, but by book 3, Brad Forrest is as good as the better Sandy Steele and Biff Brewster books.  I enjoyed #4 and #6 as much as I did the very best Biff Brewster books.  I'd like to say that Brad Forrest is the best of the three, but I can't due to three weak books in the series.

Let's consider what percent of the books I enjoyed in each series.  I enjoyed 7 out of 13 Biff Brewster books, or 54%.  For Sandy Steele, I enjoyed 5 out of 6, which is 83.3%.  Finally, I enjoyed 5 out of 8 Brad Forrest at 62.5%.  If I go by percent enjoyment, then Sandy Steele wins, followed by Brad Forrest, and with Biff Brewster last place.

My overall feelings put Sandy Steele in first place, but I did like some Biff Brewster books better than perhaps any of the Sandy Steele books.  Unfortunately, I didn't like half the books in the Biff Brewster series very much.  So, even giving Sandy Steele a slight edge, I consider it too close to call.  Each series has both good and bad books, and all three series are overall worth reading.  If you have read any books from one of these series and enjoyed them, then consider trying the other two series, at least if you can find them within your budget.  You'll probably find a few books that you like.