Customer Reviews

The Clue in the Embers (Hardy Boys, Book 35)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When Tony Prito, a good friend of Frank and Joe Hardy, inherits a collection of bizarre curios from his uncle Roberto Prito, Tony discovers he has also inherited a cast of sinister characters that want Roberto Prito's collection for themselves. Tony asks Frank and Joe Hardy to help him, and almost immediately the boys run afoul of a gang that attempts to frighten them into selling the collection, and when that does not work, they try to steal the collection.

As the mystery progresses, Frank and Joe quickly learn that the criminals are after a set of medallions that may hold a clue to a fabulous treasure located in Central America. Unfortunately, the boys do not have all the medallions and the lack may hamper their investigation. In order to investigate the mystery further the boys travel to Guatemala, where their enemies and Mother Nature strike. At one point in the story I wondered how the boys were going to escape lava. Later the boys along with Tony Prito and Chet Morton are about to be thrown into a hidden tomb to die.

While this story could have been fleshed out better, I still enjoyed it. The action was nicely paced and I found myself speeding through the chapters to learn how the mystery ends. While Frank, Joe, Tony and Chet violate more than a few modern rules of archeology, and while it would be unthinkable to provide them with a souvenir of what they find, if you can ignore the fantasy that they boys would even be allowed to dig at an archeological site without getting in trouble then this story turns out to be a page turner. I consider this Hardy Boys story to be above average and I would recommend it to a first-time reader of the Hardy Boys series.

The Hardy Boys series is recommended for ages 8 to 12 because the series is relatively tame for the previous target audience of ages 10 to 14. This particular book is a good fit for both age ranges. This book contains a number of problems regarding how the boys are so readily able to travel in certain areas of Guatemala and then excavate an archeological ruin. Today there are areas of Guatemala that are considered unsafe for foreigners, and I believe excavation of archeological ruins is very tightly regulated. However, in the fantasy world of Frank and Joe Hardy, who perpetually remain the same age, perhaps the actions they take are reasonable. Perhaps there should be a caution in the new editions: Do not try this in real life.

VERY,VERY ACTION-PACKED! This.This is the one I've been waiting for years! It is extremely ACTION-PACKED! I'll bet that all the reviewers that review this book will rate this book 5 stars. Very high on adventure and very thrilling. I would recommend this book to anyone I mean everyone! Full of suspense and action. I hope you'll love it and treasure it forever!

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was action packed, full of adventure with all your favourite characters, funny in places and I loved every minute of it.

This was a good hardy boys book: and better than the last one. It was faster paced and had a better mystery.

While the older books in the Hardy Boys series are great adventure stories for adolescent boys, they are terrible in the area of multicultural accuracy. Their treatment of the people of other cultures is ridden with the absurd clichés that were the norm in the mass entertainment of the times. In this case the story was originally published in 1955 and the Hardy Boys and their friends travel to Guatemala.
It begins when their friend Tony Prito receives an unusual inheritance; a relative dies and leaves him the contents of a curio shop. Almost immediately Tony receives a mysterious offer from a man wanting to buy the contents for a small amount and when he refuses there is danger and several attempts at theft and intimidation. This does nothing to deter the Hardy Boys although in keeping with the characters, it does disturb Chet Morton. After discerning several clues, the Hardy Boys, Tony Prito and Chet Morton travel to Guatemala where they are looking for buried archeological treasure.
I grew up devouring the Hardy Boys books, the incarnation that I read were those published before 1970. At that time, the caricatures of people in other groups were false, yet largely accepted. The adventures in this book are typical of the early Hardy Boys, they are regularly knocked senseless and everyone else speaks in a simplistic dialect. While modern readers will often object to the portrayals, there is something enduring about the adventures and the danger that appeals to the innate need of young human males to explore.

Published in 1955 - I have never ever cared for this volume and until I read The Mystery of The Aztec Warrior thought it was the worst in the series. To me I always found it a suffocating book and I can't explain why. Tony plays a prominent role in this one and to the books credit at least they encounter the criminals a fair amount and there is a little action. The latter chapters were fairly decent. Its worth reading - once -but honestly compared to the other volumes in my opinion this is among the cellar dwellers. (Almost a 2 Star - but not quite) RATED D

This review concerns the original 1955 edition and the revised 1972 edition which is a shorter version of the original. Frank and Joe's friend Tony inherits a collection of curios and immediately a gang of thieves is interested in a couple of medallions that were apart of the inheritance. The mystery of the medallions takes Frank, Joe, Chet and Tony on a treasure hunt to Guatemala. Personally, I didn't find this book very good. I thought that it lacked much action and many of the chapter endings didn't entice me to read more right away. The plot of the book was rather weak and not very creative and it took the Hardys and their friends no time at all to find the treasure after arriving in Guatemala; although, that didn't happen until page 160. While some fans may like this book, it definately wasn't one of my favorites.

The throbbing of the drums grew louder as the warroirs closed. Trapped in the middle of the stamping, screaming circle, the hardys were blinded by dust and smoke. Suddenly, as if some signal, everything stopped. Silently, the Indians closed in for the kill.