The House on the Cliff (Hardy Boys Mystery Stories #2)

this book is great for reading.

And now for something completely different! I read these as a kid and am slowly on my way to piece together a complete set of these wonderful teen classics.....gonna read them all again. Fun setting, cool adventures and all with a relatively happy ending....it does not get much better than this!

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And the cool hidden cove in the cliff is just fun to ponder.

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Again aloud with W: this is the one with the crazy secret cove, complete with secret stair carved into the rock leading to the titular house. It opens with a pre-credit sequence worthy of Bond, including exploding motorboat ejecting its pilot. Clearly when I read this as a kid, it was stoking the

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AD&D fan in me, sub rosa. The Boys take awful risks in their pal's natty Chris-Craft, but it works out against all odds. This story is the first of perhaps several in which Fenton is kidnapped.

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The key discovery for me came in the front matter:

In this new story, based on the original of the same title, Mr. Dixon has incorporated the most up-to-date methods used by police and private detectives.

Since originally reading these, I'd cottoned to the fact there was no real Franklin W. Dixon. I had not realised, however, that the Stratemeyer Syndicate set out to revise the first 38 titles in the series (apparently prompted by the fact the original copper plates were worn and before replacing, a complete edit was desirable). The revisions varied from title to title, from minimal stylistic changes to completely new plots bearing little resemblance to the original. All the stories were given similar lengths, while obsolete prose was updated and racial stereotypes removed. Some fans argue the quality of the revised stories is "generally so far below that of the originals".

I suspect I read most (if not entirely) from the revised texts as a kid, and undoubtedly they are what I'm reading aloud today.

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I absolutely loved Nancy Drew growing up. This was a series I latched on to for dear life and never let go. So after my obsession with Nancy Drew started to dwindle (mostly because I had read all the ones I could get my hands on), I moved on to The Hardy Boys because that was the natural next step,

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duh. Love the Hardy Boys (though they weren't quite as amazing and Nancy Drew and her friends).

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*Duplicate Copy* I absolutely loved Nancy Drew growing up. This was a series I latched on to for dear life and never let go. So after my obsession with Nancy Drew started to dwindle (mostly because I had read all the ones I could get my hands on), I moved on to The Hardy Boys because that was the

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natural next step, duh. Love the Hardy Boys (though they weren't quite as amazing and Nancy Drew and her friends).

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I loved it. Brought back memories from my childhood. I listened to the audio book which was a dramatic reading.