Mysterious Caravans and Mc Donalds

 Been burning through my McDonald's Monopoly wins and have reached the stage where I'm down to basically chips. I've an apple pie to redeem and some stuff that involves money off that I'll never pay enough to actually use. But chips I can do. So when I do redeem it all they had were "carrot sticks". Getting these for a laugh,  I find that its a small bag of baby carrots that you can get frozen and have had many times. Does anyone sane get these? I mean its you regular frozen baby carrots you can get in a big bag, raw, not cooked. and the worse, having to eat these within two hours of defrosting.

Anyway your scheduled book is the Mysterious Caravan or the Hardys in Morocco, a nice little mystery about them on holiday in Jamaica and them suffering in a storm which turns up a mysterious mask from a shipwreck. A nice sop to diversity is William, a Jamaican guy who likes his roots and culture and is learning Swahili. 

A few lines were changed in this for the UK but not much else. Like I say its not a bad story and whoever wrote it, definitely liked their big words. 

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

Masked Monkeys

So the Masked Monkey or the Hardys go to Brazil. 

 A nice case here for the boys tracking down the sensitive son of rich industrialist J.G. Retson. There's a good subplot of Chet running a golf ball extraction empire from his pick up truck (surely on loan from the Morton farm). But mostly its the boys in Brazil trying to avoid the attention of a masked howler monkey called Diabo, and his owner Joachim San Marten. 

 Anyway you know the drill. Original Here and the UK version Here.

Bombay boomerangs.

 An odd one for sure. The boys get involved in a mercury smuggling racket that evolves into a national security threat.  They investigate thefts of mercury from freighters in Bayport and Baltimore and the mysterious Bombay boomerang which possibly has something to do with the Super S missile stolen from the Pentagon. 

Joe rings a wrong number and is put through to the Pentagon where his call is intercepted by someone being attacked, the only clue is something called The Bombay Boomerang (he was supposed to call a mercury supplier).  

This tale mixes some dark themes and cringe humour in places as Fenton Hardy goes undercover to crack the case only to end up in a barrel and dumped in the bay at Baltimore, and an Indian sent to kill the Hardy boys thanks to a mix up over them committing sacrilege against the Hindu god Krishna. 

Cringe comes from the Radio DJ Teddy Blaze who would be a massive Smashy & Nicey clone if he wasn't feeding information to the mercury gang via his broadcasts. Its made worse in  the US version where his records are known as hot platters. At least it isn't vinyls, which would be beyond the pale. 

Special mention must go to how the boys are written in this. They come across as sharp talking and quick witted with at least one snappy comeback to whatever the crooks  throw at them. In some of the books they're written in they come across as flat, but here they feel alive. Even more so that the bloke who actually wrote it, Victor Buranelli, did three of the worst Hardy Boys books, The revised Flickering Torch and The Flying Express and the execrable Witchmaster's Key.  

Anyway you can read both the Original and UK versions here. 

Skeleton Rocks

So the Ghost at Skeleton Rock. Or the Hardys do Puerto Rico. This is the first book I ever wrote up as a sort of review for English class at school. Not the first Hardy Boys story I  read (Melted Coins). But the first sort of review I did. Can remember Chet taking up ventriloquism as his hobby of the day. 

PLOT

Fenton Hardy gives them  a cryptic message about finding a Hugo purple turban, which just so coincides with Chet Morton picking up ventriloquism as a hobby. His doll from the toy shop is almost hijacked by thugs when he comes to collect it, and when they finally pick it up they find a coded message for Cabezona N in the Spanish instructions. 

A few more clues brings them to Puerto Rico, via the small island of Tropicale. The Cabezona clue largely brings them to the pineapple growing regions to the south as there is a Punta Cabezona there along with a sugar central (processing plant). They find that the plane leads due north, and as a hunch hire a boat and find that there is a small island being used by a Durling Hamilton leader of the bad guys as base. Although charming he tries to get the local Carib Indians to kill off the boys and when that fails sabotages his boat and then gets them to sail back to Puerto Rico for help and watches them sink.

So where actually is Skeleton Rock then, and what about that ghost? 

19 chapters in we finally find out that Skeleton Rock exists in the extreme north of Hamilton's island as a dread place of ritual for the Caribs. The ghost of a long dead Cacique actually a projection is being used to scare the Indians into compliance. 

Differences?

So far there are a few text edits to certain phrases and spellings in the English version, from the US original. But as it's based on the rewrite and the text file I have that purports to be original has fuck all differences between this and my UK copy, I'd like to get my hands on an original to see what edits were made (if any).

Edit. UK version Here and Original version here