Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #37-39: The Deathstalker Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Deathstalker Trilogy consists of the following three titles.

#37 Movie Menace
#38 Movie Mission
#39 Movie Mayhem

In #37 Movie Menace, Frank and Joe are asked to investigate who is threatening Anya Archer, who is starring in a movie based on a popular comic book series, Deathstalker.

The text describes the premise of Deathstalker in excessive detail.  This is a fictitious comic book series, and we learn everything there is to know about it.  I was bored.

This is a "sabotage on a movie set" plot, and everything about it is so boring!  Character after character is introduced rapidly, and I cared about none of them.  I couldn't keep any of them straight.

I found the story to be at least somewhat interesting during the first half of the book.  I skimmed the story during the second half.  The book ends with a culprit who isn't the only culprit.  How predictable and totally unsatisfying.

In #38 Movie Mission, I have no idea what happened.  I started the story and found it to be extremely boring.  I then quit and moved to the third book.  I was feeling quite stressed.  I first thought I was just bored, but later I figured out that the Undercover Brothers series was about to make me crack up.

I started #39 Movie Mayhem without having read the second book.  This should have been a problem, since I had not read the previous book in the trilogy.  It's like nothing happened! I hadn't missed anything, and the setting seemed about the same as the beginning of the first book.

The plot of this trilogy goes in circles.

I read some of the third book, then I skipped to near the end where exactly the same stuff is happening.  I skipped some more, discovered the culprit, and was not surprised since I had already figured out that the culprit was one of two people early in the first book before I began skimming.  This was pointless.  Why would anybody want to read this garbage?

I am sure you have already figured out that I did not enjoy this trilogy.  In fact, I hate this trilogy.  These are probably the worst three books in the series.  Fortunately, they are also the final three books in the series.  Thank goodness.

It's strange that the best three books in the series are followed by the worst three books in the series.