Hardy Boys Adventures: The Smuggler’s Legacy, trust the process

Let’s party like it’s 1977. The Hardy Boys are on television, it’s Sunday night and I’m about to relax and get my mystery on. I had read a couple of the books, but for me, it was the television version that I enjoyed. Your version of The Hardy Boys might be different. There was a series that ran from 2020-2023 on Hulu, the classic books, and now, their literary sibling has been modernized. Change is not a bad thing and when it comes to The Hardy Boys, their adventures and lifestyle are modern-day, but they still have the same hallmarks of the elements that brought them here.

Unlike the recent television reboot that was set in the 1980s, Hardy Boys Adventures, Book 25 The Smuggler’s Legacy takes place on a modern-day field trip. The Smuggler’s Legacy is upper-elementary through middle school, mglit. It’s written and presented on a level that those ages will enjoy, and be able to relate to it, more on that in a moment.

Frank and Joe Hardy are part of a group of students taking a historical trip to New York City. Their chaperone has organized a variety of places for them to visit but is also aware of their curious nature and propensity for finding and solving mysteries. The brothers also just want to be tourists, eat some authentic pizza and hang out with their friends.

There’s also an election happening in the city also, a fact that the boys quickly notice by the candidate who they see is all too coiffed and put together. The book glibly calls this person a Ken-doll candidate, who boasts about his ancestors coming to America with only a couple of dollars and a dream. Shortly after this foreshadowing event, the group makes way for their first destination, the Gilded Hat speakeasy.

Everyone is bemused when their five-minute walk ends at a storefront that’s a grocery store. Their chaperone is greeted by the store’s owner who tells them that they share the entrance with two brothers. The small group of high school students makes their way through the shotgun-style store lined with pastries that’ll never expire and are in front of a prohibition-era telephone booth. Here, the tour guide pulls out a special key and unlocks a passageway that leads to the spiral staircase that astute readers will associate with the one on the book’s cover.

Once they descend the stairs they’re presented with a rough overview of prohibition and what times were like in the 1920s. Not surprisingly, the very inquisitive Hardy brothers have some questions for the tour guide, who is sorely unprepared for any of this. Suddenly the history of this establishment is thrown into question and the boys just might find some other clues at different places around the concrete jungle.

The brothers start to get harassing notes under their hotel door. Their friends start to disappear. One of their friends gets kidnapped and when the Hardy Boys call them, they’re told that they could be arrested for tampering with an investigation.

Young readers will appreciate that The Smuggler’s Legacy doesn’t take itself too seriously and acknowledges the elephant in the room. The police make a couple of well-timed “Scooby-Doo gang” references when they encounter the brothers or their friends once too often. The pacing of the book is also just tight enough to hold today’s reader’s attention span. Most chapters end with a cliffhanger, which is a great way to get those upper elementary school kids to jam their way through an entire book. There’s also a real sense of danger as the book’s climax approaches. Thankfully, it’s not as easily solved as ripping off someone’s mask or a simple case of mistaken identity.

The Smuggler’s Legacy is written at a reading level that is easier than the Hardy Boys books of yore.  Is that because kids today wouldn’t be able to read them, or that they’d find the content wholly uninteresting? It could also be that most Hardy Boys books from back in the day are musty, have soda stains in them, or have a negative connotation around them.

Hardy Boys Mysteries: The Smuggler’s Legacy will have some of that reputation around it, if nothing else just by name recognition. It’s a similar haze that Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has around it in that one version or era of the intellectual property was so successful that different generations will be unable to view it any other way. The Smuggler’s Legacy is enjoyable for ages 10 and up. It’s a carefree, good time that tells a story with enough twists to keep readers engage if they allow themselves to be.

Hardy Boys Adventures: The Smuggler’s Legacy is by Franklin W. Dixon and is available on Simon & Schuster.

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