Twisted Claws

Love this version, makes it look like a casefiles book

This is the 11th Hardy boys mystery. And one that is quite a bit strange. First of all its a smuggling ring based on a mysterious Caribbean island. The second it's all about pirates.

UK edition.

Quite what has changed here is anyone's guess. I have the original text file and a home scanned copy of the UK edition remake complete with cats drawn in the flyleaf. 

It has some similarities in common with the original, Pirate island / Smuggling ships called the Parrots, logs used for smuggling and a trip to Canada. But this is where it ends as this is a different story. Oh and an old book that details the Twisted Claw pirate lineage. 

Fenton Hardy tells the boys that he's onto an international smuggling ring targeting the De Graw collection in various museums. It seems that The Black Parrot, an old schooner is being used to transport it. The boys dress up as old salts and  try to blag their way onboard but none of the crew are friendly and end up in Canada. After many daring thefts they try to foil, they end up on the sister ship. Yellow Parrot winging their way to the Caribbean, paying a visit to the king of an unknown island that is the smuggler boss. 

Original

Frank loses his wallet complete with code book in. Pierre of the Black Parrot ship targets them to give them some papers from Fenton Hardy. When they fail to do so, he breaks in and scares Aunt Gertrude and their Bejayzus Oirish maid, Mary. When their mum comes back with a strange message they work out that their dad is kidnapped in Canada. Their trip there garners two of the Parrot gang captured and a daring rescue of their Dad from a forest fire. Later they get board on the Yellow Parrot schooner and manage to win over most of the crew. 

They reach Barracuda island home of the Twisted Claw smuggling empire. They sneak in and watch the strange meeting of the Parrot gangs .Back on board they get  the crew to mutiny when Pierre catches them and they send a last gasp SOS which rounds up the gang. 

Trivia.

Apparently the mystery island is 5 hours GMT behind where they live in Bayport..

You can read the original and UK version here and here.