Book Review #28: The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure (1) by Franklin W. Dixon

    The Hardy Boys is an incredibly long series that was started back in the late 1920s. I know that seems old, especially for books people might still read, but to this day the books still hold up as being good and somewhat relevant. It would be good to mention now that these books were edited in the 70s and 80s to be more appropriate for the public because they were very racist. I mean, they were written in a time when that was normalized so certainly not a slight on the author by any means, which is not really the name of the author. Franklin W. Dixon is actually a pen name for a bunch of authors who took the Hardy Boys plotlines and wrote the books. The first thirty were written by a Canadian man, Leslie McFarlane, these ones are really good considering they get the ball rolling on the entire series. Most people also consider the first thirty to be the best books within the first series, which is a whole other thing entirely because there are at least three series, though the first changes enough over time it could be considered to develop into its own fourth series. 

    I personally enjoyed the first book and considering it was the first book in the series it's completely okay that it isn't the best. It sets up the characters well enough that any reader can see the thought that went into them, of course, now would be a good time to mention that while these books are fairly linear you can read them in any order. I personally read them at first by what I had which ended up being twelve, sixteen, thirty. This definitely had a difference in how I viewed the first book so bear with me. I had an idea of who the characters were before I started and three examples of how the plotlines went so the first seemed a little boring to me because the common sequential plot wasn't yet developed. I feel that I might have enjoyed the book more if I had read it before any of the others. Despite this, it really was a good mystery though not filled with as much danger as the usual in later books. The two protagonists, Frank and Joe Hardy, are also well-thought-out characters that really bring the book out. However, I find that sometimes they are too alike and instead of complimenting each other's characters they seem to be copies of each other. While I can see how this may look good it just feels like that book could have been written with a single protagonist in mind. The later books do establish a larger difference between the two so this can easily be chalked up to the fact that it's the first book in a series that ended up being 190 though some only attribute the first 58 to be a part of the original series.

    Overall book rating: 8/10