Customer Reviews

The Crisscross Shadow (The Hardy Boys, No. 32)

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

 

 

Published in 1953, this was a swift paced adventure that took place primarily in the wilderness near an Indian reservation. The crooks were known early on in the book to the Hardys and there was a great amount of interaction. All & all I really enjoyed this book. The frontispiece ranks among my favorite, the cover was well drawn, the plot and mystery kept the reader turning from page to page. There actually was a good mystery here as the Hardys were in a race with the criminals to learn the location of the Crisscross Shadow. RATED B+

In all your life, in all the places you've lived, has any touch of interior design or decoration ever looked better than that long powder blue line of Hardy Boy book spines, with the little Frank & Joe cameo, did on your bookshelf when you were a kid? I thought not.

The Hardy Boys were created, along with Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins and myriad others, by Edward L. Stratemeyer (1862-1930). He would then outline stories and farm them out to writers hired through his Stratemeyer Syndicate--which sounds like the literary equivalent of the Triangle Shirt Waist factory. The resulting stable of series must surely be the most read children's books of all time, even in this era of Goosebumps and Harry Potter.

Frank and younger brother Joe are the sons of the renowned detective Fenton Hardy, who always seems to be away on an important case. Between attending class and winning football games for Bayport High, the boys manage to investigate their own fair share of suspicious doings. This fairly typical entry finds the brothers involved in a case which includes a local Indian tribe (yes they were still Indians then) and some dubious characters who keep trying to break into their Dad's safe.

Blessedly free of strong language, serious violence, sexual subtexts or weighty social issues, the books are suitable for all ages. I fondly recall plowing through pretty near the whole series, with brief timeouts for Encyclopedia Brown. I can't imagine a kid not liking them.

GRADE: B

I have now read 23 of these wonderful books by Franklin W. Dixon, and The Crisscross Shadow ranks among my favorites. There are the usual 'Bad Guys' here, but these crooks are particularly rotten to the core! And it is this crookedness - as opposed to the goodness and caring of the Hardys - that leads to several (literal!) cliff hangers within this story.
And this is what I love about Dixon's books: They display to their readers a time when goodness, thoughtfulness, honor, respect, and caring were not seen as something to mock, but something to hold up as a model for (particularly young) members of society.
My wife and I have given the first 15 of these books to some friends who have just given birth to a beautiful baby boy (it'll be a while before he can read them, of course!), and the remaining 8 to our seven year old nephew. We hope that these books will be able to transport them - in some small way - to a time when the virtues listed above were something to be cherished and honored. Sure, these times weren't perfect (just look at all of the rotten bad guys!), but at least Dixon's characters like the Hardys and their friends bring a counter-balance to the 'bad stuff'!
In a time when folks like Tim Tebow are openly made fun of, and Reality TV "celebrities" who seem to live only for themselves are thought of as, well ... "celebrities!", it is refreshing to read stories about characters who actually stand for something. Now if only we could have more of that in real-life!

My husband used to read the Hardy Boys mysteries when he was young, so for a joke, I bought him a few for Christmas. Turns out that they are actually a good read, even for adults! He has read one so far, and I have read 1/2, and LOVE IT! I probably would never admit it to our friends- we would probably be laughed at, but I sure will continue to read them in private! I'm sure younger kids would enjoy them too.

There are two main characters in the book. They are Frank and Joe Hardy. When they come home from football practice there is a man in their house named Breck. The man is a leather goods saleman. He tries to sell their mother a key case. When their mother goes to get the money Breck takes a key and a picture from their house. The boys find the picture, but not the key. The boys go on a hunt to try to find where the key case was made. When they get to the place the place is an Indian tribe. The tribe sends them on a hunt for the deed to their property. When the boys find the deed they solve their mystery too.

This review concerns the original 1953 edition and the revised 1969 edition , which follows a plot similar to the original edition except it is shorter. When a phony leather goods salesman steals the key to Mr. Hardy's filing cabinet, Frank, Joe and Chet track a clue to an indian village and end up helping the indians find the lost deed to their land to prove their ownership. This book isn't bad, but it's not one of the really good ones either. The first half of the book is a little dull, but the last half is pretty good and it isn't until this point that the indian mystery comes into the story. If you don't mind the first part of the book you should enjoy the last part.

I think this book was nice, especially for the action parts like getting klidnapped, the train incidient, and the cliff part. Those are mostly the only things I like about this book. But it's still a classic, no matter how many stars it has. That's a fact.

I enjoyed the Crisscross Shadow and would rate it somewhere in the middle as far as a set is concerned. It was neither among the best nor worst of the series.

When I was young, my friends and I were avid readers of the books in the Hardy Boys series. When anyone acquired a new book, it was read and then passed from boy to boy until all had a chance to read it. This episode in the series involves a small Native American tribe and the possibility that they will lose their land. Their deed and some other valuables were hidden in a secret location on their land, "under the crisscross shadow." The courthouse containing the land records for the area burned down years ago, so there is no other record of their ownership of the land.
A team of villains is also after the deed, for if it is not found within a time frame, they will be able to take ownership of the Native American land. While there are some physical confrontations, the primary battle is one of wits and intelligence. The storyline is one of the weaker ones in the series, there is not a lot of dramatic action and the action there is generally seems to be forced.
I found this story to be weak and only mildly interesting when I first read this story decades ago and that recollection was reconfirmed when I read it again.

The way the authors wrote this series, you learn a little more about the main characters from book to book. In this book we learn that Chet Morton, Frank and Joe Hardys' best friend, was the great-grandson of Ezekial Morton, who was honorary Chief Wallapatookunk of the Pashunk tribe. We also meet the Ramapan tribe, which the author described as being 500 miles from Bayport. However, in real life it appears that neither the Pashunk nor the Ramapan tribes actually exist. The boys learn that someone is trying to take Ramapan land for a reason that they ultimately learn at the climax of the story.

We also learn that Frank and Joe Hardy and their best friend Chet Morton play football for Bayport High. Bayport High must also be a very small school, because Frank, Joe and Chet play on offense and defense. There is a mistake in my revised edition of this book that caused me to re-read a couple of pages. During the play against Hopkinsville, the text reads "Joe...a step ahead of the Bayport pass receiver." Joe is on Bayport High's team, and the team was playing against Hopkinsville, so he would have been trying to get the ball from the Hopkinsville receive.

Anyway, the mystery kicks off with a suspicious man trying to sell Laura Hardy, the boys' mother, a leather key case with the letter "R" surrounded by a design. The Frank and Joe Hardy observe the man through the window of their house trying to steal the key to their father's file cabinet. Unfortunately, when the boys confront the man their mother explains that the man was transferring keys to the new case. However, since this is a Hardy Boys mystery, we know this man is up to no good. The boys soon learn that the man, Breck, may be a criminal.

The boys learn that the symbol on the key case is that of the Ramapan tribe. The Ramapans are located in the woods about 500 miles from Bayport. It appears that they use suitcases hauled through the woods to deliver their hand-made crafts (seriously, that is what the books says - I had to laugh at this part). The Ramapan chief asks Frank and Joe to solve the mystery of where the deed for their land was buried. The previous chief buried the deed to protect it, and as the chief was dying he described the location of the deed to be where the crisscross shadow was located.

Things heat up for the Hardys as they uncover clues one-by-one. The boys and their best friend Chet discover that there is a gang out to find the deed. The gang is very dangerous, and tries to kill Frank and Joe by pushing them in front of a train, and members of the gang attempt to push them off a cliff as well. Why is the gang trying to hard to take the Ramapan's land? That is the heart of this mystery!

While the boys are trying to solve the Ramapan's mystery, the story also remotely follows the boys' father, Fenton Hardy, as he battles against saboteurs. The entire family tries to keep their spirits up as there as Fenton appears to be in danger and then missing. At one point the boys encounter someone who looks and sounds just like their father, but this man appears to be injured and defeated. Things look grim for Fenton, Frank and Joe Hardy more than once in this book.

The boys resolutely follow the trail of the criminals and the clues, and eventually find a crisscross shadow, but they still have a hard time finding the box containing the deed and a valuable dagger. The criminals are right behind them and try to discover the location themselves. The criminals finally force Frank and Joe to point out the location of the deed to the criminals. The reader will have to discover what happens next.

This book is quite bumpy in terms of readability. Laura Hardy is quite annoying when she tells the boys that they are behaving badly, only to find out later that they are right. Given that the boys have behaved very ethically for 31 previous books, her behavior appears unwarranted and should have been out of character. While the description of the Native Americans was actually decent, the description should be updated. It is unlikely that any Native American land is so remote that it can not be reached by road. Lastly, the football descriptions should be updated as well. Even small schools usually have a separate offense and defense, with very few players play both, especially in back-to-back plays. These problems make this book slightly difficult to read and keep the rating in the 3 star range.

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 that age range. Older readers may find it difficult to understand the social differences between this book and our current era, of which there are numerous examples throughout the book. However, a collector of the series will want this book regardless of the faults.