Hardy Boys #104 Tricks of the Trade, #105 Smoke Screen Mystery, and #106 Video Villains

In Hardy Boys #104, Tricks of the Trade, Frank and Joe attend a magic seminar in New York hosted by Lorenzo the Magnificent.  Valuable jewelry disappears during each magic act, and the boys suspect Lorenzo's assistant of being the culprit.

On page 120 after a theft, everyone is to be searched.  One person leaves to call the police, and that person is not searched.  The boys ought to know that everyone is a suspect, yet that person is overlooked.  I wasn't surprised when this person turns out to be one of the villains, although I was quite surprised by the identity of the other villain.

The book has a premise that appears to be just like other books with magicians and magic acts which involve thefts that occur during performances.  At first I thought I would not find this book interesting, but the fresh take on an old story idea makes the book quite engaging.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Hardy Boys #105, The Smoke Screen Mystery, Frank and Joe become volunteer firefighters.  Every fire is attributed to faulty wiring, but the boys soon realize that an arsonist is loose.

On page 37, the boys are searching the scene of one of the fires as it gets dark outside.  Frank comments that the boys need to hurry since the light is diminishing.  The boy's van is outside, and it is stocked with everything the boys could possibly need in an investigation.  And the boys are searching in the late evening without flashlights because...?

As I read this book, I realized that there is a gender bias among children's books.  Nancy Drew would never work as a volunteer firefighter.  The Hardys are able to do more exciting activities since they are boys.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

In Hardy Boys #106, Attack of the Video Villains, Joe is a lead contestant in Videomundo's Hack Attack competition in New York.  But soon, the boys find themselves in the middle of danger and intrigue.  Chet purchases a Hack Attack cartridge, and gangsters keep trying to steal it.  The men will stop at nothing, and the boys must discover what is so special about the cartridge.

On page 42, the reader learns that ROM is "ready-only-memory."  No, ROM is actually "read-only memory."  "Ready-only-memory" makes no sense!

On page 100, a Videomundo representative has no idea what a backdoor to the game is.  This is a huge red flag, since the book had already explained that the video magazines give backdoors in each issue.  There's no way the rep wouldn't know, so I knew that this person was one of the villains from that passage.

I greatly enjoyed this book.