Tic Tac Terror

 Hello, book time again and a late era story UK wise. 

An espionage based one. A spy threatens to defect unless he gets an emerald from Colombia. That's the story and there is a slight sub tale of Chet Morton raising rabbits and white mice to sell to laboratories. 

It's not bad, but could do better, a lot better. The only saving grace is that you get  to see Biff Hooper in a rabbit suit, which he uses to troll Chet. In fact this seems to be the only time I've seen a picture of Biff, in any of the books. 

You'll want a better synopsis  then. 

OK seeing as the top paragraph is brief. The boys take on a  strange tale of a man coming back from Colombia with it seems no memory of why he was there, they find him in a coma in a run down block in New York city. There is also an agent called Igor who seems to be a master of disguise showing up in Joes camera. And to top it all a mysterious Government outfit called BOB. The Bureau of Bombs. Men In Black fans will be amused to know its being run by an Agent Smith. 

So this Tic tac toe thing...

Doesn't really come into it. The boys are run on a wild goose chase across NYC with them playing Noughts and Crosses against terrorists which is the limit of the Tic Tac Toe references.

I bet there are lots of differences, too, between  the US and UK edition.

No, there is a slight change to how the tic tac toe clues are read out but this could be the text file I'm working from. Apart from this all spellings that are normally corrected for us remain resolutely American.

You can get it from here. and here.