The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Series Overview

I have been reading through the Hardy Boys books in order to compare them to Nancy Drew.  After I finished the Hardy Boys Digest series, I concluded that I enjoyed that series slightly more than the corresponding Nancy Drew series, although the difference is not enough to be decisive.  I also concluded that the Hardy Boys are allowed more interesting cases in the Hardy Boys Digest series than Nancy Drew in the Nancy Drew Digest series.

The Nancy Drew Girl Detective series corresponds to the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series.  I previously published my ratings for the Girl Detective series.  I like the Girl Detective series a lot, probably more than most collectors.  If you are a collector who really likes the Girl Detective series, please let me know because I feel like I am the only one.  Maybe I am the only one...

I struggled with giving a rating to many of the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers books. Many of the books that I have labeled good are probably somewhere between good and not good.  I went with the higher rating, so these ratings are generous.  Therefore, it should be noted that many of the "good" books are more along the lines of weakly good and some may not be good.

  1. Extreme Danger - very good, sabotage
  2. Running On Fumes - not good, sabotage
  3. Boardwalk Bust - excellent
  4. Thrill Ride - very good, sabotage
  5. Rocky Road - excellent
  6. Burned - not good
  7. Operation: Survival - very good
  8. Top Ten Ways To Die - good, sabotage
  9. Martial Law - not good
 10. Blown Away - good, sabotage
 11. Hurricane Joe - not good
 12. Trouble in Paradise - not good
 13. The Mummy's Curse - good, sabotage
 14. Hazed - excellent
 15. Death And Diamonds - good
 16. Bayport Buccaneers - good, sabotage
 17. Murder At The Mall - very good, sabotage
 18. Pushed - excellent
 19. Foul Play - excellent, sabotage
 20. Feeding Frenzy - good, sabotage
 21. Comic Con Artist - good

 Murder House Trilogy - sabotage
 22. Deprivation House - not good
 23. House Arrest - not good
 24. Murder House - not good

 Double Danger Trilogy
 25. Double Trouble - good
 26. Double Down - good
 27. Double Deception - good

 Galaxy X Trilogy - sabotage
 28. Galaxy X - good
 29. X-Plosion - good
 30. The X-Factor - good

 Killer Mystery Trilogy - sabotage
 31. Killer Mission - good
 32. Private Killer - good
 33. Killer Connections - very good

 Lost Mystery Trilogy
 34. Children of the Lost - excellent
 35. Lost Brother - excellent
 36. Forever Lost - excellent

 Deathstalker Trilogy - sabotage
 37. Movie Menace  - not good
 38. Movie Mission - not good
 39. Movie Mayhem - not good

Out of 21 books (not including the trilogies):

Not good - 5 books or 23.8%
Good - 7 books or 33.3%
Very good - 4 books or 19.1%
Excellent - 5 books or 23.8%

Overall out of 21 books - 42.9% very good or excellent  

Out of 39 books (including the trilogies):

not good - 11 books or 28.2%
good - 15 books or 38.5%
very good - 5 books or 12.8%
excellent - 8 books or 20.5%

Overall out of 39 books: 33.3% very good or excellent

I enjoyed the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series noticeably less than I did the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series.  I rated 48.9% of the Girl Detective series as very good or excellent and only 33.3% of the Undercover Brothers series as very good or excellent.  This is a significant difference.  Even more significant, many of the books I labeled as good really aren't that good, so you could say that as much as 66.7% of the series is not that good.

I mentioned in my overview of the Hardy Boys Digest series that it is stronger than the Nancy Drew Digest series because Nancy Drew is constrained by her gender.  The reverse is true for the Undercover Brothers series.  In the Undercover Brothers series, the Hardy Boys are constrained by their gender.  They are only allowed stories with lots and lots of action.  

The Nancy Drew Girl Detective series is largely character-driven.  The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series is action-driven.  In fact, most of the series reads like sports sabotage, which is my least favorite plot type.  Even when the Undercover Brothers series is not sports sabotage, the stories are endless action of some type with sabotage thrown in for good measure.

Each book opens in the middle of an action scene as the Hardys wrap up a previous case.  I read these scenes during the early books, but later, I skimmed or skipped all of them. They annoyed me tremendously.  I don't want to read the conclusion of a story not featured in the series.  I want to read the story that is the focus of the current book.

After the action scene introduction, the Hardys receive orders for their next case.  This always occurs by someone bringing the boys a pizza or something else, them acting incredibly dumb like they don't know this is how they get their cases, and then the boys finally figuring it out and watching a DVD about the case.  This was mildly annoying in the early books, but by later in the series, I found these scenes to be highly obnoxious.

The Undercover Brother stories feature an excessive use of gimmicks.  The gimmicks are comic book characters, amusement park rides, or special devices that do crazy things.  All of the gimmicks are described to an excessive degree.  It's important that the reader know every minute detail about every single gimmick.  And I found all of it to be boring!

Apparently many boys really enjoy this type of story; at least, they do if any of the reviews on Amazon can be believed.  Amazon is rife with fake reviews of all products. Since the positive reviews appear to be from children who are probably boys, I suspect that they are real reviews.  However, the series is not good from my point of view as an adult female reader.

I did generally enjoy the early stories in the series.  By the time I reached the trilogies, I could no longer stand the series.  The Lost Mystery trilogy is outstanding, but even during that trilogy I was weary from the rest of the series.  So when I started reading the final trilogy, I just wanted to quit.  I skipped those books and forced myself to read the two super mysteries.

As I tried to read the final trilogy and as I read the two super mysteries, I noticed how tense, stressed, and unhappy I was.  Right after I finished the second super mystery, I started reading the first Super Mystery book.  Since the book features Nancy Drew Girl Detective, whom I like very much, I relaxed and felt much happier.  This drove home the fact that the last part of the Undercover Brothers series tortured me.

Most likely, I will never read these books again.  I will probably sell the set sometime soon.  I read these books so that I would have the full knowledge of the progression of the Hardy Boys series from 1927 to the present so that I could compare the Nancy Drew Diaries series to the Hardy Boys Adventure series.  Reading the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series was worthwhile for that reason only.  Otherwise, it was a horrible experience.

The 2007 Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mystery Series

Early in my reading of the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series, I decided to read the six titles in the 2007 Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mystery series and purchased the titles that I needed.  I later regretted this decision.  Since I had built the set, I read the books anyway.  That is... I tried to read them and was partially successful.

The set consists of the following books.

1.  Terror on Tour
2.  Danger Overseas
3.  Club Dread
4.  Gold Medal Murder
5.  Bonfire Masquerade
6.  Stage Fright

As I began reading Terror on Tour, I was dismayed that the book opens in the middle of an action scene in which the Hardys are wrapping up a case.  I grew so sick of those scenes from the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series.  I thought I would be past those annoying scenes.  Somebody please save me!

The next chapter features Nancy and her friends.  As I read this chapter, I quickly remembered how much I enjoy the premise of the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series.

On pages 40 and 105, George calls the Hardy Boys dorks.  I cannot express how much I appreciate that.  The Hardy Boys are the Undercover Brothers version in these books, and they are dorks.  They are also idiots and the very worst incarnation of the Hardy Boys.

The parts of the text featuring the Hardy Boys have too much discussion and information about the rock stars.  I was bored.  I only enjoyed the parts of the book that feature Nancy Drew.

The mystery is lame and uninteresting.  The book is worth reading only for the interesting interaction between Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.

Danger Overseas is a travelogue, so I found it boring.  I did not like it.

In Club Dread, the sleuths solve a mystery in Florida.  On page 6, the text states that Nancy forgets to eat while on a case.  I can understand not eating all day when busy, since I have done that, but forgetting to eat?  Like, wouldn't Nancy get hungry eventually?  This is the type of detail that makes the Girl Detective series flawed.  It's not logical.  Even though I like the Girl Detective series a lot, the series does go too far in depicting Nancy's imperfections.

I enjoyed Club Dread.  I guessed one of the culprits early in the book and was interested in how it would work out.

I also enjoyed Gold Medal Murder, although it's just good and nothing special.

Bonfire Masquerade opens with Nancy wrapping up a case.  Oh, no!  Now we get an action scene at the very beginning with Nancy.  Even worse, the book then switches to the Hardy Boys who also are wrapping up a case in another action scene.  I'd rather get on with the real story.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew do not cross paths until halfway through the book, which is odd.  Around that time, I quit reading the book.  I found it boring.

Stage Fright also opens with Nancy wrapping up a case and then the Hardy Boys wrapping up a case.  Again, this not interesting to me.  This book also bored me, and I did not read most of it.

Overall, I did not like this series.  I was already stressed by the horrible Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers trilogies, and this series added to my stress.  Ugh.

I am glad that I read the first book, however.  I found it useful to remember exactly how much I enjoy the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series, which helped me realize how much better it is than the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Super Editions Wanted and Kidnapped

Unfortunately, early in my reading of the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series, I purchased the two Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers super editions to read.  As I neared the end of the series, I wished that I hadn't.  Now I must live with the consequences of that decision.

In the first super edition, Wanted, a bank robbery is committed by two teenage boys who use the names Frank and Joe.  The boys even resemble Frank and Joe.  ATAC notifies the Hardys, telling them to run and not to try to solve the case.

Say what?  This makes no sense!  Why tell the boys to run?  They have been accused of crimes before, and they were able to solve the case without running from the police.

Of course Frank and Joe decide to work on the case.  In one scene, the boys behave shamefully during a parade.

This is an overall good story, but it has many problems and is rather annoying.  I skimmed the last few chapters, which cover a very lengthy chase.

In the second super edition, Kidnapped, Frank and Joe investigate the disappearance of Katie Boutry.  Katie is a college reporter who was investigating a casino.  Frank and Joe head to the casino to look for clues.

This book is decent, but I did not enjoy it very much.  The Undercover Brothers series wore on me as I read through the trilogies, and my stress level became quite high as I forced myself to finish the series as quickly as I could. By the last trilogy, I felt like I was being tortured.

Super editions are a money grab.  The publisher creates a special edition that is marketed as a better, special story.  These stories aren't special.  This was just an easy way to make money.  The publisher couldn't even bother to create decent cover art.

I did not purchase the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers special edition, Haunted, which features the boys investigating supernatural events.  I have no idea if I missed out on a good story, but somehow, I don't care.  I probably dodged a bullet.

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.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #34-36: The Lost Mystery Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Lost Mystery Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#34 The Children of the Lost
#35 Lost Brother
#36 Forever Lost

In #34, The Children of the Lost, ATAC sends Frank and Joe to Idaho to investigate the disappearances of eight children over the course of twelve years from Misty Falls State Park in Idaho.  One of the children, Justin Greer, has reappeared and has amnesia. Frank and Joe interview Justin and camp in the state park during their search for clues.

This book begins with a prologue, which details Justin's reappearance.  Normally prologues annoy me, but this one is good.  The suspenseful atmosphere set up by the prologue is then ruined when the next scene shows Frank and Joe in the usual Undercover Brothers story introduction where they are in the middle of wrapping up a previous case.  I hate those scenes!

This book deals with a character who has amnesia.  I typically do not enjoy those kinds of books, because I have trouble caring about someone whose identity we do not know.  This one is different because we know who Justin is.  Since Justin doesn't remember who he is or where he has been, the amnesia is intriguing.

This first book in the trilogy is very suspenseful.  I knew that Frank would disappear by the end of the story, since the next book is Lost Brother.  I was tense with expectation as I waited for the disappearance.

In #35 Lost Brother, Frank has vanished.  Joe has no clue where he is and is left trying to solve the case on his own.

In this type of story, the dual first person perspective pays off.  We get to see what is happening to Frank and what is happening to Joe.

Very early in this story we learn for certain who the culprit is.  That is, Frank and the reader learn.  Joe still does not know, and the culprit is a tremendous threat.

Poor Joe looks so forlorn on the cover. Actually, Joe looks like that on every trilogy cover, but at least he has a good reason to look sad on this book's cover.

In #36 Children of the Lost, Frank continues to try to escape, and Joe continues his search.

I have one minor complaint about the names of two characters.  Justin's father is Jacob, and I kept confusing the two characters. Authors should be careful about using names that begin with the same letter.

I love young adult dystopian trilogies, and this trilogy is very similar to those.  This story is dark and is not for younger children.

All three books are excellent.  This is an outstanding trilogy.  This type of story is perfect for a trilogy, with the story developing throughout the three books.  These three books are by far the three best books in the entire Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #31-33: The Killer Mystery Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Killer Mystery Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#31 Killer Mission
#32 Private Killer
#33 Killer Connections

In #31 Killer Mission, Frank and Joe go undercover at a private school.  Frank is posing as a student, and Joe is the new dog handler.  Several staff members and students have met with accidents, and influential parents want answers.  Frank and Joe must discover the truth behind the accidents.

I was happy as I began this book, since the plot does not have the gimmicks of the previous trilogy.  The book is very good at first, but the story quickly becomes boring as it devolves into nonstop discussion of the sabotage and possible saboteurs.

The book ends as usual with the discovery of a culprit who is not the only culprit.

In #32 Killer Mission, Frank and Joe have concluded that the sabotage centers around members of the Gamma Theta Theta fraternity.

On page 90, Frank considers that they "might be after multiple suspects."  No kidding!  Of course there are multiple suspects!  Every trilogy has at least three culprits.

In #33 Killer Connections, Frank and Joe investigate more sabotage at the school.

On page 141, a certain character knows something about a crime that Frank and Joe have kept secret from everybody.

The boys do not immediately realize that this person is responsible.  Once again a trilogy author insults readers by making Frank and Joe ignore the obvious.

I guessed the culprit in the first book.  In every trilogy so far, I have guessed the final culprit during the first story.  The culprit becomes fairly obvious during the later part of this book, especially after page 141, but the boys never suspect this person.  The culprit is revealed just a few pages before the end of the story.

This book is very good, while the other two books in the trilogy are just good.  This book would have made an excellent stand-alone book.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #28-30: The Galaxy X Trilogy

The very first book in the Nancy Drew Diaries series, Curse of the Arctic Star, has this quote on page 42.

"Yeah," Tobias scowled.  "I wanted to go to Galaxy X.  That's what I call a cool vacation.  Not some stupid boat."

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Galaxy X Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#28 Galaxy X
#29 X-plosion
#30 The X-Factor

In #28 Galaxy X, someone is threatening to sabotage the grand opening of the new theme park, Galaxy X.  Frank and Joe are asked to find the saboteur.

These sabotage plots are so original.  Not!

The end of this book is typical.  The culprit confesses but not to everything.  After the culprit is jailed, more sabotage occurs.  This means we have another saboteur!

In #29 X-plosion, Frank and Joe continue to investigate the sabotage at Galaxy X.

I enjoyed this book more than the first book, since the boys interact with a female skateboard champion who is quite interesting. In fact, she is my favorite part of the book.

This is a very good book.

In #30 The X-Factor, Frank and Joe are still stuck at the amusement park, investigating even more sabotage.


I guessed the probable final culprit fairly early in the first book, due to this person's ability to hot wire the roller coaster.  Over and over during all three books, the boys mention that the culprit has to be quite knowledgeable about electronics.

The boys never mention this one person's obvious knowledge until very close to the end of the third book.  Every trilogy is like this. The culprit is obvious, but the boys have no clue.

The trilogy is overall good, and once again, I am being generous.

The cover art for all of the trilogies is lame. The boys look so uninterested, which is fitting since the plots are boring.  The boys are extremely stupid in the books, and they look appropriately stupid on the covers.  So I could perhaps say that the cover art is excellent, since it captures how awful the series truly is.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #25-27: The Double Danger Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Double Danger Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#25 Double Trouble
#26 Double Down
#27 Double Deception

In #25 Double Trouble, superstar Justin Carraway has a stalker.  Frank and Joe go undercover on the set of Justin's latest film as they try to find out who is stalking Justin.

It doesn't help that Justin is a jerk.  I overall enjoyed this book, but I didn't care for the setting.  The story is boring sabotage.

In #26 Double Down, Justin's twin brother Ryan has disappeared.  Justin is unconcerned, but Frank and Joe find it strange that Ryan has gone on a sudden vacation to a tropical island.

Meanwhile, Justin continues to receive threats, and for some odd reason, Justin is acting different.  In fact, he behaves more responsibly and almost exactly like Ryan.  You know, the missing brother.  Hmm.

Of course, stupid Frank and Joe have no clue what is really going on.  This is where the trilogy began losing me.  I cannot stand it when a plot twist is so extremely obvious to the reader, yet the characters have no idea.

On page 97, Frank and Joe learn some information about Justin and Ryan's father. Frank follows a few links online to find out. This information is supposedly unknown to practically everyone, yet Justin is extremely famous.  There is no way that obsessed fans wouldn't have followed the same links and found out.  Besides, TMZ would have already shared the information.

In #27 Double Deception, Ryan continues to be missing, and Justin continues to behave more like Ryan than himself.  Justin also has some curious memory lapses, where he doesn't know things that Justin should know. Frank and Joe are clueless.

The plot twist with the brothers was apparent from early in the second book.  There are so many clues, and very obvious ones are throughout the third book.  Frank and Joe are oblivious.  It is not until page 141 that they figure out what I knew from early in the second book.

While I read this trilogy, I kept picturing Justin as Justin Bieber.  It just seemed like a logical comparison, all things considered.

The trilogy is overall good, but it is also annoying.  I must say that I am being rather generous in these reviews.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #22-24: The Murder House Trilogy

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers Murder House Trilogy consists of the following titles.

#22 Deprivation House
#23 House Arrest
#24 Murder House

In #22 Deprivation House, the contestants to a new reality show, Deprivation House, have received death threats.  Frank and Joe join the cast to uncover who is behind the threats.

Most of the characters are not described well, and some of them have no descriptions at all.  They are introduced too fast, and it's very hard to remember any of them. This greatly took away from my enjoyment of the story.

A film star was murdered in this house.  I already know that this must be important to the entire trilogy even though it is a side note in this book. 

This isn't going to sound nice, but I kept thinking of the author as a hack writer as I read this book.  This book has poor descriptions regarding everything, and the story is not that interesting.

Despite the book's shortcomings, it is a decent book.

In #23 House Arrest, Frank and Joe think they can go home.  The culprit has been caught and is in jail.  But when more threats are made, the boys realize that someone else is sabotaging the show.  This is so shocking!

Actually it isn't.  That's how every single Nancy Drew Girl Detective trilogy plays out.  A culprit is revealed but is not the real culprit.  I knew this series would use the same flawed concept.  Argh!

This book is sabotage, sabotage, and even more sabotage.

Each time a contestant wins a competition, they must choose a privilege to take away from the house.  It's really dumb that Frank takes away the television privilege.  A network movie about the murder that occurred in the house is going to be on television, and the contestants have been looking forward to watching it.  Since stupid Frank takes away television, the boys can't watch the movie and will miss out on clues.  But of course that is what the author wants!

At the end of the book we find the culprit for the warnings and sabotage—at least most of it.  We learn that the culprit isn't responsible for everything.  There's yet another saboteur!

This book is also decent, but it's also kind of boring.

In #24 Murder House, Frank and Joe continue their investigation.

I knew early in the first book that one contestant had to be the daughter of the murdered woman.  The age of the contestants is exactly how old the daughter would now be.  By the end of the first book, I knew that daughter had to be one of two contestants, even though Frank and Joe have no clue that the murder has anything to do with the events in the house.  In the second book, I was almost certain which contestant was the daughter.  This was confirmed at the end of the third book.

This trilogy is unsatisfying because Frank and Joe don't figure out that the daughter is in the house until the last 20 pages of the final book of the trilogy.  Idiots.

This book was written in a bland fashion, and I felt no suspense at all.  I also never cared about any of the characters.  At the end of the final book, I couldn't remember which saboteur did what.  It's very confusing.

This trilogy is not good.

As I reached this point in the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series, I began to develop a deep disliking for everything about the series.  That disliking strengthened as I continued to read through the trilogies.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #19 Foul Play, #20 Feeding Frenzy, and #21 Comic Con Artist

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #19 Foul Play, Frank and Joe go undercover as members of Pinnacle College's football team. Pinnacle is to play for the national championship, and it is believed that some of the players are going to throw the game.

On page 37, we learn that Joe played football in school.  In Undercover Brothers #5, Frank and Joe did not play football because Fenton wouldn't let them.

I expected this book to be very boring, since it would be the typical football and gambling conspiracy  story.  It turned out much more interesting than I expected.

Joe plays in the championship game.  The problem is that he is not a student at Pinnacle. Colleges can't have random students from elsewhere playing football, especially in a national championship game.  Nothing is ever mentioned in the book about this being a problem.

This story reads a lot like a Hardy Boys Digest book, so this might have been a Digest book that was revised for this series.

This is an excellent book.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #20, Feeding Frenzy, a death has occurred in a qualifying round for Football Frank's Super Bowl hot dog eating contest.  Frank and Joe enter the contest as contestants as they investigate the death.

On page 8, we learn Chet is not athletic, that he is a "couch potato."  I guess he has already lost the "two hundred pounds of solid muscle, yo" that he had built up in Murder at the Mall.  What a shame.

The characters are not introduced well in this story, and I didn't care about any of them.  The story is mostly not very interesting until around page 100.

The story gives too much information about hot dog eating contests, like graphic descriptions about how to eat the hot dogs and buns quickly.  There is a medical emergency later in the book that also involves some graphic information I won't repeat.  Ugh.  Boys probably enjoy this information, but I don't.

This book is overall good, except for the gross parts.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #21, Comic Con Artist, Frank and Joe investigate forgeries of valuable comic book art.

One character makes really nasty statements about how comic books are childish.  I don't like seeing this kind of very negative statement about comic books, since it feeds the stigma against comic books.

On page 101, Frank and Joe interview a professor who has lots of comic book memorabilia in his office.  Joe immediately picks up a statue, which I thought was quite rude.  When the professor grabs the statue from Joe immediately, Joe thinks to himself about how this is "the kind of guy who [doesn't] want you touching his collection." Can you blame him?

I overall enjoyed this book, but I lost interest towards the end.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #16 Bayport Buccaneers, #17 Murder at the Mall, and #18 Pushed

In Hardy Boys #16, Bayport Buccaneers, Frank and Joe participate in a reality show that is set on a pirate ship.  Contestants must complete tasks in order to advance, and valuable prizes will be offered.  A member of the crew died recently, and the boys must find out whether he was murdered.

The book is a retread of Hardy Boys Digest #183 Warehouse Rumble and is similar to #132 Maximum Challenge.  All three books are television show sabotage stories.  For that reason, the book isn't as interesting as it could have been.

The book is overall good, but I got bored towards the end.  I skimmed the last part of the story.


In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #17, Murder at the Mall, an environmental group has sent threats to the owner of a local mall. Meanwhile, someone is sabotaging the mall. The mall is losing money, and the owner may decide to sell the mall.  Frank and Joe investigate.

On page 12, we learn that Chet is no longer fat.  He joined a bodybuilding program and has somehow disciplined his eating habits.  Chet now has muscles.  On page 164, Chet pats his stomach and brags, "Two hundred pounds of solid muscle, yo."

Chet is so strong that he is able to hold onto the rear bumper of a car to keep it from moving forward while the accelerator is jammed down.  Say what?!

This is a very good book that keeps the reader guessing.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #18, Pushed, Frank and Joe go undercover as runaways in New York City.  The boys stay at a shelter for runaways.  A boy who recently stayed at the shelter may have been murdered.

I wasn't surprised about the culprit, since I figured that person had to be the one from the very beginning of the book.  However, I didn't figure out the motive until much later in the book.  I was shocked as I realized how ruthless this person is, committing crimes that go far beyond what Frank and Joe originally thought.

This is an excellent book.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #13 Mummy's Curse, #14 Hazed, and #15 Death and Diamonds

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #13, The Mummy's Curse, a man found a map to a hidden tomb that contains a golden mummy.  The man was killed for the map, but he had given the map to his girlfriend, television star Sam Chilton, who plans to find the mummy.  Frank and Joe join Sam's expedition.

The beginning chapters are stupid.  The explanatory information concerning the mission is much longer than usual and bored me.  I couldn't stand Sam at the beginning of the book.  She is depicted as an extreme airhead.  I came very close to abandoning the book within the first 50 pages.  I forced myself to keep going.  Once the expedition begins, the story is much better.  Oddly, Sam quits being an airhead, which makes no sense at all.


The first part of the book is not good, and the rest of the book is very good.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #14, Hazed, Frank and Joe go undercover at Eagle River Academy.  A boy named Roy died recently, supposedly of a heart attack, but ATAC believes that he may have died as a result of hazing.  Frank and Joe allow themselves to be hazed in order to pick up clues.

We learn near the end of the story that Roy died from poisoning.  I find it very hard to believe that an autopsy would not have found the poison in Roy's body and that a heart attack would have been blamed.

This is an excellent book.

I realized near of the end of Hazed that the Undercover Brothers books don't have the boring question and answer session at the end.  That was a staple of the original 58.  It was used less often in the Digests, but still too often for my taste, since I almost always find it boring. 

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #15, Death and Diamonds, an auction of valuable diamonds is taking place in Bayport.  Frank and Joe must serve as personal bodyguards to the two supermodels who will be wearing the jewelry.  Meanwhile, they must help thwart underworld characters from stealing the diamonds.

I enjoyed this book.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #10 Blown Away, #11 Hurricane Joe, and #12 Trouble in Paradise

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #10, Blown Away, two high-profile events are taking place at the Billington Resort:  a car auction and a celebrity wedding.  Someone has threatened to blow up the resort.  The man who is getting married and the man running the auction both hate each other, making them primary suspects.  Frank and Joe are tasked with finding the bomb before it detonates.

Several scenes are confusing as to which boy is narrating.  This author had a bad habit of using the pronoun "he" for the brother not narrating, and I kept forgetting which boy was the narrator.

This book is just average.  I overall enjoyed it, but it's not memorable.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #11, Hurricane Joe, a local weather network has sent out hurricane warnings that turn out to be fake.  During the false hurricane warnings, houses get burglarized. 

This book was published in 2006.  The premise is a great idea, but it would have been more logical for the early part of the 20th century.  I find it really hard to believe that an entire town evacuates when the sky is blue with the sun shining and only one station predicting a hurricane.  In 2006, there was something called the Internet, and it seems that some people would have figured out that the warnings were fake. 

On page 120, we learn that Aunt Trudy's name is actually Gertrude, like we didn't already know.  On page 168, we learn why Trudy doesn't let anyone call her Gertrude.  It's because of Hurricane Gertrude and all the jokes that Trudy (er, Gertrude) received afterwards. 

Frank and Joe tease each other way too much in this book.  It's annoying.

This book is okay, but the story is too hard to believe.  It is a weak story.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #12, Trouble in Paradise, the son of Don Ricardo, the UN Ambassador from the island of St. John, has disappeared.  Frank and Joe are sent to the Caribbean island to find him.

This story interested me enough that I read it, but it is just okay and not memorable.

Obviously, these books are all lacking.  The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series started off in a fashion that was interesting, albeit highly flawed, but at this point, the series begins going downhill fast.  The scary part is that these books are still early in the series.  Ugh.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #7 Operation: Survival, #8 Top Ten Ways to Die, and #9 Martial Law

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #7, Operation: Survival, Frank and Joe investigate a camp for teens who have gotten into trouble with the law.  Two people have died at two different camps, and ATAC suspects that the man in charge of the camps is responsible.  Frank and Joe enter the camp pretending to be teens who have been arrested.

Nancy Drew is mentioned on page 100, which is interesting since the Hardy Boys are never mentioned in the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series.

I had trouble telling the other teen characters apart.  They are introduced way too fast with very little information.

I greatly enjoyed this book.  The story has a twist at the end that I did not expect.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #8, Top Ten Ways to Die, Frank and Joe investigate who is trying to murder rock star Vee Sharp.  They join the crew of Vee Sharp's music video in order to investigate undercover.

This is yet another rock star sabotage plot.  I usually don't like these very much.  I enjoyed this book more than I usually do this type of plot. 

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #9, Martial Law, Frank and Joe sign on as students at the Rising Phoenix Martial Arts Center.  Two Rising Phoenix students were attacked and nearly killed, and ATAC wants Frank and Joe to find out whether there is a connection between the attacks.

The center only takes boys who are small and wimpy.  Somehow Frank and Joe get in, even though they don't meet the criteria.  Frank and Joe are amazed at how large the students at the center become after being there for a number of months.  Hmm...

On page 86, Frank and Joe find out that the owner has lots of pills in unmarked pill bottles.  Hmm...  I knew immediately that the pills have to be steroids.  Foolish Frank and Joe don't make the connection until later in the book.

This book is okay, but I never found it very interesting.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #4 Thrill Ride, #5 Rocky Road, and #6 Burned

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #4, Thrill Ride, Frank and Joe investigate a death and sabotage at Uncle Bernie's Fun Park.  A woman was recently killed on the roller coaster, and it is suspected that the death was not an accident.

This sabotage plot is interesting.

In each book, Fenton worries about Frank and Joe.  Fenton is the one who got the boys into ATAC, so his worry is not logical.  Fenton acts like a mother hen, and this is disconcerting, since Fenton never behaved like that in any of Hardy Boys #1-190.  I find Fenton's excessive worrying to be obnoxious.  So do Frank and Joe.

I really enjoyed this book.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #5, Rocky Road, Frank and Joe are sent on several bogus ATAC missions while vandalism occurs back in Bayport.  The boys soon suspect the Bayport ATAC agent of being in league with the vandals.

On page 70, we learn that Frank and Joe have never played football, which is a change from the original series.

Callie and Iola appear in this book, and they don't drive yet.  Chet just got his license.  This means that Chet is probably 16, and the girls are probably 15.

It's odd that Frank isn't nervous around Callie and Iola, since he is petrified around all other girls. It's also odd that Callie is present, and this is her only appearance in the Undercover Brothers series.  For those two reasons, I believe that this book was originally intended to be a Hardy Boys Digest book that was instead used in this series.

This is an excellent book.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #6, Burned, Frank and Joe must find the mastermind who is bootlegging CDs in Bayport.

This book was published in 2005.  I am pretty sure that by 2005 CDs were already into a steep decline.  For that reason, I had trouble getting into this book.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this book had originally been written as a Digest book and was adapted for this series.  It would have been more logical for this book to have been published several years before it was.  The story parallels one of the Digest books set at Bayport High School, and I have a feeling that the plot was created around that time.

I didn't find this book to be that interesting.  I never cared about the identity of the culprit.  Normally, I do.  This book is weak.

Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #1 Extreme Danger, #2 Running on Fumes, and #3 Boardwalk Bust

The Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series is a modern interpretation of the Hardy Boys series.  Frank and Joe take turns narrating the story in first person, and they speak in an informal fashion.  Aunt Gertrude is now Aunt Trudy.  Fenton Hardy is a retired police officer who founded the organization ATAC, American Teens Against Crime.  Laura Hardy is a librarian.  Frank and Joe work undercover for ATAC.

Brian Conrad is a bully who does not like Frank and Joe.  Brian's sister Belinda likes Frank, but he is nervous around girls.  Joe loves girls and knows he is very attractive and irresistible.  He can't understand why all the girls like Frank instead.  This is a running gag throughout the series.

Each book begins in the middle of an action scene in which Frank and Joe are wrapping up an ATAC case and are nearly killed.  While these scenes are typically interesting, they annoy me since they have nothing to do with the rest of the book.  I want to get into the story that I am about to read.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #1 Extreme Danger, ATAC has assigned Frank and Joe to discover who is sabotaging the Big Air Games.

I began reading this book in this series immediately after finishing #190 in the Digest series.  As I experienced with the Nancy Drew Girl Detective series, it was hard at first getting used to the different tone.  I had the same thoughts I had when I began the first Girl Detective book, feeling that the experience was jarring.  This book has lots of humor, and I was thoroughly engaged once I read the first few chapters.

On page 23, an ATAC agent throws a brick through the Hardys' window in order to give them their next mission.  This method of delivery seems a bit dangerous to me.

Even though this story is typical sabotage, the text is written in such an interesting fashion that I really enjoyed the story.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #2, Running on Fumes, Frank and Joe latest mission is to investigate Arthur Stench's compound, which is located in the California desert.  Stench is suspected of using violence to further his environmentalist cause.

I found the narration shift between Frank and Joe to be distracting in this book.

This book is weak.  The true motive of the wacky environmentalist Stench is surprising, but it is also not logical at all.

In Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers #3, Boardwalk Bust, Frank and Joe investigate a series of jewelry store heists in Ocean Point, New Jersey.

Each Undercover Brothers book gives a suspect profile in each book that adds descriptive information which makes characters easier to remember

The change in narration doesn't bother me much in this book.

Some plot twists are interesting and funny, like jewelry found on the beach.

This is an excellent book, with the following caveat that I hope readers will keep in mind as my reviews are published.  If I report that an Undercover Brothers book is excellent, then it is understood that the book is excellent for those who can appreciate and enjoy the first person narrative and informal tone of the Undercover Brothers series.  I can, so this book is excellent to me.  Some readers will hate all of these books no matter what.