Hunniwell Boys #3 Secret Service and #4 Platinum Mystery

In the Hunniwell Boys #3, The Hunniwell Boys in the Secret Service, Bill and Gordon enter a contest to see which plane can fly to San Francisco and back the fastest.  Naturally, the boys win.  As a result of the contest, they become friendly with Rogers, who works for the government.  Rogers requests that the boys help him figure out who is smuggling liquor across the border into the United States.

This is an excellent book and is a good detective story.

In the Hunniwell Boys #4, The Hunniwell Boys and the Platinum Mystery, Rogers enlists the boys' help in finding a lost cache of platinum in Hawaii.  The lost cache is on land once owned by Rogers' family and was left there by one of his forebears.

I noticed that the electric cell is now called a battery.  It's about time.

This story consists of several unrelated mini-adventures that occur while the boys look for the platinum.  Gordon even jokes about the mini-adventures on page 185, remarking, "Probably we'll see a ship on fire or a whale with a sore toe."

The racism present in the Hunniwell Boys books bothers me due to the overtly judgmental basis of it.  The boys become friendly with a "Jap" after a rough start.  On page 194, Gordon speaks positively of him, saying, "He's a regular fellow if his skin is a bit on the yellow shade."  He's saying that the man is okay despite his skin color.

For the duration of this book, no villains are after the platinum, which makes the story more realistic than most series books.  It's not necessary always to have somebody who knows one's intimate plans.  The boys run into plenty of trouble without having anyone privy to their plans.

This is an excellent book.