The Mercer Boys #9 Air Cadets and #10 Steamboat Riddle

In the Mercer Boys #9, The Mercer Boys with the Air Cadets, the Mercers recently graduated from Woodcrest Military Institute and wish their time at the school was not over.  The boys receive a letter from the colonel that informs them of the new flying course that is open to graduates of the school.  Don, Jim, and Terry immediately sign up for the course.

Back at Woodcrest, the boys find their instructor, Sergeant Crispy, to be very difficult.  Crispy takes a strong disliking to the Mercers and their friends.  Meanwhile, the boys learn about the Hawk's Nest, the hideout of a group of outlaws based in the vicinity of Woodcrest.  The outlaws wish to destroy Woodcrest's flight school, so the boys take turns guarding the planes while they seek out clues.

I enjoyed this passage from page 11.

"Look how the automobile opened up this country and revolutionized modern living.  You can go anywhere on good motor highways.  Air lanes are going to make it unnecessary to build roads and all that sort of thing and all important traveling in the future will be that way.  Think what flying will do to bring the whole world together."

This book was published in 1932, long before commercial flight became common.  The above passage is prescient, accurate in most of its predictions.  Wyckoff was only wrong about how it would be unnecessary to build roads.  Roads are still quite important 86 years after this book was published.

This is an excellent book.

In the Mercer Boys #10, The Mercer Boys and the Steamboat Riddle, the Mercers and Terry visit Vench on his family's farm in Kentucky.  Soon after the boys' arrival, their horses are stolen, and they are left stranded in an old mill during a storm.  Once the boys finally arrive at Vench's farm. they learn that the locals are quite superstitious.  The superstition has been fueled by sightings of devils and mysterious figures dressed as Robin Hood and pirates.  The boys see someone dressed as a cat, and the man accidentally leaves the head behind, which came from a professional costume made many years before.

The boys learn that a group of men is searching for the loot from a bank robbery.  Meanwhile, three old steamboats rest abandoned in the nearby river, and mysterious figures are seen roaming on the steamboats at night.  As the boys investigate, some of them are captured by the outlaws.

Plot elements of this story loosely remind me of the Nancy Drew book, The Haunted Showboat.  The stories are completely different but do share some commonality.  Some examples are the people in masquerade, singing heard at night on the river, and a man on the steamboat acting out the role of captain.  The Haunted Showboat ends with a Mardi Gras parade, and this book has a parade of sorts near the end when the steamboats float away in a flood.

This is an excellent story.

The Mercer Boys series is excellent.  I am so glad that I was able to purchase all 10 books.  They are well worth reading.