This book is nothing special, but not bad either. The Hardys are asked to investigate a disappearing, and end up disappearing into a desert wilderness themselves.

This volume was absolute dribble!! The Hardys go to Iceland, walk around there getting into one problem after another with things that have nothing to do with any mystery. This book was about a bunch of dumb things that happened to the brothers. Somebody would have a crisis upon the conclusion of each chapter which was overcome at the start of the following chapter. WOW! Throw out the sleeping pills! For less money you can aquire a copy of The Arctic Patrol Mystery. Guaranteed to make you yawn or your money back. This book is a filler. Buy it to complete your collection - read it once (And wish you hadn't - life is short) and go on to something else. How in heck can ANYONE call this rubbage a mystery story???? This in my opinion was just about the worst book in the canon. Just to clarify - I did not like it.

Frank, Joe, Chet and later Biff go to Iceland to search for a missing sailor who has been left a large sum of money in a will. While there, they become involved in the search for a missing U.S. astronaut. This is an excellent book for anyone planning a trip to Iceland because the author has included many bits of information about the island. Unfortunately, he forgot that this is a Hardy Boys MYSTERY story, because there is very little mystery to this book. The plot is incredibly boring. What little action or cliffhangers are in the book are usually something that has no connection to the mystery, such as a plane crash or somebody disappearing, and they are resolved by the first or second pages of the next chapter. The book is anti-climatic because the most important criminals are captured during chapter 18 and the remaining criminals are so unimportant that they aren't even given names. This is an awful book; so, unless you're a glutton for punishment, DON'T READ IT!!!

The Arctic Patrol Mystery is a very good and very interesting book.The way Chet helps to find the imposter,and the way he and his brother think.This is the best book I ever read.And I suggest that you should read this book to.

The author really missed when he wrote this one. No excitement, no mystery, and the action seems added on to take up space on the pages. What could have been a good book jumps around and there are too many coincidences even for the Hardy Boys.

Like all volumes after The Mystery of Spiral Bridge, in plain English they were "bad". However this volume is worth reading and did manage to hold my interest. The brothers travel down under and like so many books during this era incorporated way too much educational material about the place they were visiting. Hello - This is a Mystery series - not an atlas! Horrible artwork. No surprise there. Overall the book ranks between horrible and average. It did contain a little suspense in a few places. That is more than I can say about some of the other higher volumes. RATED C-

FRank, Joe and Chet travel to Australia to search for a missing scientist, kidnapped by a gang that is trying to prevent the launch of the Firebird Rocket. This book was not one of the better books of the series. The mystery is average, but lacks any original thought. The first 100 pages of the book are somewhat boring and rarely entice the reader to continue. After that, the book gets better and is fairly interesting until the end. If you can make it through the first half of the book, the second half is worth reading.

This is certainly one of the worst books in the series not to be outdone by a few others. The book is packed with an adequate amount of action - yet it was still rather difficult to remain interested. The brothers are hardly in Bayport, the writing is weak, and the is little to no mystery whatsoever. The theme is ballooning and naturally it is Chet's hobby. ... The brothers had a lot of interaction with the criminals which was good, and I rank this a strong one star, but not deserving of a 2. RATED D.

A wealthy balloonist enlists Frank and Joe's help to protect him and a valuable life-size chess piece, the Ruby King, with which he has been entrusted. I didn't find this book very good; it was very hard to get into this book, the reader doesn't learn much about the mystery in the first few chapters. The mystery is not very interesting, there is little action and many of the chapter endings aren't exciting enough to make you want to read more. In my opinion, this is one of the five worst books of the series.

This is one of the hardy boy classics. It is a defninte must read.

This review concerns the revised 1965 edition. Frank and Joe are drawn into a new mystery when a blind peddler gives them a glass eye and a warning. Through the course of the mystery they are confronted with the theft of the Jeweled Siva, a valuable Oriental idol; an innovative hydrofoil speedboat; a terrified wealthy businessman and a health farm run by a mysterious doctor. You would think that all of this would make an interesting book, but it doesn't. This book rarely held my interest and many of the chapter endings did not make me want to read more. The book is completely different from the original written in the 1930s, but neither book is very good and it is obvious the author of the revised edition had to force the story to fit the title by dropping the line "a figure in hiding" in various places in the book, even though it sounds awkward everytime. The very end of the book is particularly bad. Without spoiling it for anyone who decides to read the book, you go from the criminals having the upper hand to them being caught in a matter of three short paragraphs. This is definately not one of the better Hardy Boys mysteries.

This review concerns the original 1937 edition. Frank and Joe aid their father in rounding up an unscrupulous, phony surgeon, who dupes his victims by promising miracle cures for their eyesight problems. The book is well-written and the action level isn't bad, but there is no real mystery to solve. Frank and Joe aren't trying to find out who did what, or where something is hidden or what this gang is up to; they are just trying to get evidence that this surgeon is a crook. For this reason, I found that the book never really made me curious to find out what was coming next. The book is really good from pages 192-204, but unfortunately that isn't enough to make this a great book. I'd only recoomend this one to true Hardy Boys fans.

Mr. DIXON died. I think people shoudn't critisize what he worked on so hard. But it doesn't have any mystery....but at least its good.

A misleading book.Very DUM!Can't understand the word DUM.DON'T EVEN READ OR LOOK AT THIS BOOK. It's just wast wasting your time.

The Phantom Freighter is a great book. I really enjoyed reading it. 5/5 is my rating for this book.

This is a Heart-Warming Novel of Freind-Ship, Courage, and Adventure for the Hardy Boys. I laughed, cried, and cheered right along with Frank and Joe Hardy! Bravo! A completely touching family-freindly mystery. The best book I have ever read! Why can't we read more books like THIS in school? The Phantom Freighter ALL the WAY!

Frank and Joe try to find out who is trying to sabotage both the owner of an animal/amusement park and the owner of a blimp manufacturing company. Mr. Hardy tracks down a gang of terrorists. There really wasn't much to this book. The plot was boring and unoriginal. The action was almost impossible to find and the story dragged on throughout most of the book. The only good thing that I could say about this book was that the Hardys stayed in Bayport for a change and all of their friends were included in the book. In my opinion, this is probably the 4th or 5th worst book of the hardcover editions. Only buy this one if you want to complete your set.

One blast of a mystery! I can't beleive that other reveiwers don't like this book at all!(maybe they're mystery haters...no offense.) The Sorpion Sting is about when the Hardy Boys find the Safari Queen drop two things out of the sky. A small object that exploded, and a elephent that also explodes. The Hardys go an investigate and can't because of the gaurd's orders not to let them in. The Hardy Boys later find themselves scrambling in another mystery. The rest I have no time to tell because I going to Sandiego to compete in a Teakwondo(karate)tournament in an hour. Make sure you this book carefully.(if you haven't)

The Sting of the Scorpion by Franklin W. Dixon is a great example of a Hardy Boy book. It is about a new dirigible that is being sabotaged. Also an animal park owner is being pressured to sell out. Can the Hardy boys stop the evil Scorpio gang in time? Franklin W. Dixon writes nothing but mystery stories. People who like suspence would love this book. I give this book 5 stars.

Arthur Hardy, author of the most known Mardi Gras guide in New Orleans rose to notoriety almost exclusively due to his never-ending series of lawsuits against anyone and everyone else in the area attempting to publish a guide on Mardi Gras. This ex-highschool music teacher claims to be the foremost expert in Mardi Gras, which is not very accurate in the opinion of this reviewer. Hardy publishes an annual magazine, most of which consists of paid advertising, peppered with a list of krewes, parade maps and what they throw. It's hardly the "collector's item" the overly ambitious author claims. You can get more substantive information in the daily newspaper and in doing so, you don't subsidize Hardy's ongoing attempt to sue everyone else into submission who is bold enough to challenge his pseudo-monopoly on the publishing of Mardi Gras guides.

Excellent publication for parade routes and activities. There are many, many ads in the book, but all are geared to Mardi Gras. This is a good collectible guide for the Carnival season, but seems to be most useful to help a new comer understand the ins and outs of News Orleans Carnival. If you want the collectible, I recommend this. If you want the guide, wait for next year's, as this one is dated.

Are we allowed to curse on here? Probably not - so I shall refrain - but what in the name of crimony were these people thinking when they published this compilation of letters and sentences and stamped the name Hardy Boys Mystery on it????????????? This WAS without a doubt the WORST book in the entire series. My opinion - they got this mixed up with the Bobsey Twins series and put the wrong name on it. Written by Harriett Adams - no surprise! Anyone who has read her works (Namely Nancy Drews volumes 35-56) will understand why this book is as bad as it is. First of all this book deals with genealogy and a descendant of an Aztec Warrior getting an inheritance. Now come on people - think about this.......Everytime I hear this sort of thing I wince. Aztec Warriors lived in what century?? Let us suppose this Aztec Warrior was born in 1700 (And I'm being Conservative) Do you realize how many descendants this person would have? THOUSANDS! Not one. How could anyone legally or logically determine who was the rightful heir of someone who lived so long ago! What a legal battle that would bring. Volume #44 should not be The Haunted Fort. It should have been titled THE HAUNTED LAW OFFICE. Utter ridiculous plot. Furthermore this was the most boring of any Hardy Boys book. The cliff hangers in plain English - [were bad]. Actually WHAT cliff hangers? You mean there were some? I read this book once and that was enough. I do not intend to ever read it again - unless alzheimers kicks in. A one star rating is much to good for this one. There had to be a worst book in the series somewhere and this was it. RATED F Triple Minus Infinity!

A dead mans will enlists the aid of the Frank and Joe Hardy along with their Detective Father, Fenton to find a person who's only description is 'The Aztec Warrior'. The case takes the boys, along with their best pal, Chet, to Mexico. Among the ruinded temples and ancient pyramids, they find themselves against a group of people who will do 'anything' to get to this Aztec Warrior before they do.

This is the least enjoyable Hardy Boy book I have read so far. Their detective skills in the book relies solely on pure luck and coincidence with not much, if any, detective work being done by the duo. Action sequences are all a let down. A chapter will end with a Bull bearing down at them giving the boys no escape. This will all be resolved in the next chapter within one very small paragraph saying that it suddenly turned down a side street. This is what I call 'A COP OUT!!!". A majority of all the exciting parts of the novel end this way making the novel a very frustrating read. I would recommend this only to Hardy Boy completists out there.

This one is GREAT. My favorite character is Chet because he likes eating and so do I. He helps solve the mystery by saving the Hardy Boys. It has a few pieces of history in it, but it's not real accurate.

Yuck yuck yuck! I only read the sample they have here but it's horrible! They have next to no detail, they even leave out characters, (any one remember Fatty Boldger?) it's wayyy to simplified.. and so on.. how someone could make a clifts notes of 4 books, (all of which are ~ 300 pages long) is not right in the head.

While this Cliffs Notes is a fairly good synopsis of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, it is nonetheless full of minor inaccuracies. For instance, Dr. Hardy uses the plural 'Dunedain' as a name for Aragorn, when he should have used the singular Dunadan. He states that Faramir and his company engage the 'men of the east' in Ithilien, when they in fact engaged the Southrons. Little things like calling 'The Old Forest' simply Old Forest, or "The Morannon" simply Morannon are annoying to the Tolkien purist. So is his habit of calling the Black Riders 'Dark Riders', a term which I suspect was used in an effort at political correctness by Dr. Hardy, though Professor Tolkien didn't use it. Calling Galadriel's powers 'psychic', as Dr. Hardy does, may not be wholly untrue, but it is hardly a word that captures the essence of her Elven magic. And speaking of Saruman's staff as a 'magic wand' also misses the mark, I think. To folks who have not read the book (who are after all the target audience, I suppose), this Cliffs Notes is a pretty good summary. To Tolkien fans with an eye for detail, finding all Dr. Hardy's little mistakes will at least provide an evenings entertainment.

I thought that these Cliff Notes were a great help when I came to making an essay about the book that I never actually read. Although thsese cliff notes do lack everything that the book has to offer, I suggest that you read the book collection. After I did write that essay on the book, I read the whole Hobbit collection and I thought that those books were the best set that I've ever read!

So if you do want feel like you are that person in the book, and it's full of suspense, read the full book collection of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, you won't regret it, and you'll have a hard time putting the book down.