Disaster for Hire

The Hardy Boys: Casefiles #23

by Franklin W. Dixon

Frank and Joe race to Seattle to help their father, Fenton, who stands accused of murder! In their father's rented house, they're met by burglars, who try to gun them down. When the brother detectives follow their trail, they learn that valuable timber is being destroyed by a deadly virus. They also find an entire town has been sealed off to prevent a mysterious flu epidemic. Meanwhile Fenton Hardy is the hostage of a sinister scientist with a formula for certain death. And if the brother team can't reach him in time - he'll become the victim in a doomsday experiment.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Young Adult

Paperback

First published January 2, 1989

About the author

Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels for the Stratemeyer Syndicate (now owned by Simon & Schuster). Dixon was also the writer attributed for the Ted Scott Flying Stories series, published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Canadian author Leslie McFarlane is believed to have written the first sixteen Hardy Boys books, but worked to a detailed plot and character outline for each story. The outlines are believed to have originated with Edward Stratemeyer, with later books outlined by his daughters Edna C. Squier and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams. Edward and Harriet also edited all books in the series through the mid-1960s. Other writers of the original books include MacFarlane's wife Amy, John Button, Andrew E. Svenson, and Adams herself; most of the outlines were done by Adams and Svenson. A number of other writers and editors were recruited to revise the outlines and update the texts in line with a more modern sensibility, starting in the late 1950s.
The principal author for the Ted Scott books was John W. Duffield.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more of an adventure thriller than a mystery and seems aimed at a younger reader than the original Hardy Boys series. It opens with Frank and Joe Hardy flying off to Seattle to look for their father, famous detective Fenton, who's been framed for murder. He was in the area working on a case at Farber University where research in the field of bioengineering is big. There are two rival lumber companies in the neighborhood as well, one of which is doing well because the other is plagued by a mysterious blight that's damaging their trees. Frank and Joe work with a young woman named Jenny, who is the daughter of a scientist from the college who has been murdered. They have to solve the forest mystery and locate their father and outwit the nefarious evildoers in order to clear Dad's name, bring closure to Jenny, and make sure justice prevails. I read the original series of Hardys books as a youngster and was always intrigued with the differences between the original versions and the rewritten versions. For the last several years I've re-read several of the originals and the rewritten versions that replaced them to compare the two. The original series ended in 1979 with volume #58 and I never read beyond that point, but they continued in different formats until 1985 through volume #85. When the Stratemeyer Syndicate sold the rights to Simon & Shuster publication resumed, up through volume #190 (!?!), and there were several other versions and series as well. They're still going strong... there's no way you could read them all. This series, the Casefiles, ran from 1987 to 1998, and there are 127 novels in the series. I read somewhere that three of them were written by Ron Goulart, one of my favorite science fiction writers, so I made an exception to my resolve to stop with the originals and got the three Goulart wrote from a used book dealer. So, Disaster for Hire was written by Goulart (as Franklin W. Dixon, of course!) and was released in January of 1989. As compared to the original series it's quite thin, with none of the familiar characters even mentioned at all. (Well, Joe does mention Callie Shaw once, saying she'll be jealous of Frank being around Jenny, but that's all.) There's nothing of the familiar setting or any of the trappings, either. There are a couple of things that distinguished it for me as a work by Goulart, mostly the dialog with an elderly gentleman in the forest who can't keep his mind on the subject at hand, but also the theme of high-tech scientific developments getting out of control. It was a very quick read with a few fun bits here and there, but once I read the other two Goulart novels I'll probably never pick up another Casefile. 2.5 stars, rounding up.

[Russell Vitrano · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's really not much mystery in this book, and all the events seem to happen super- fast; there's not enough time to mull over any clues. Someone, usually Frank, gets a bizarre piece of evidence and then just happens to know what, who, and where. Usually why, too. And he's always right. Maybe I'm expecting too much from a kid's book, especially reading it again as an adult.
I have always loved the dynamic between the two brothers, though; that still rings true. The playful competition, the brother jokes, and their willingness to go through whatever to protect each other and their father are my favorite things about this series. I don't know. I think some of the characters were better written than the overall story.

[Bookish Indulgenges with b00k r3vi3ws · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first read Hardy Boys, I think I was in class 5, I had such a crush on Frank Hardy. I liked the brainy one over the brawny one and that sums up my first impression of Hardy Boys.
In their late teens, Frank and Joe Hardy take after their detective father Fenton Hardy. Frank is the older of the two and has more breakthroughs in the cases because he is the brainy one. Joe is the younger brother who more often than not is useful when things get hot and they need to fight their way out.
Like Nancy Drew, the books in the The Hardy Boys series re written by ghostwriters under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. And yes, the earlier books were better than the latter ones.

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fenton Hardy goes missing while on a case in Seattle. Frank and Joe rush to Seattle only to find that Fenton is wanted for murder.
They are soon working with a scientist's daughter, Jenny. They discover a corrupt Biotech firm; a lumber company that really doesn't like competition, a man-made plague and two really stupid but violent thugs.
Eventually, they find the biochemist hired by the lumber baron as well as their missing father but not before getting trapped in a forest fire.

[Daniel Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frank and Joe's dad is framed for Murder in the Northwest woods surrounding Seattle Washington. Frank and Joe rush to help their father but he has diasappeared. There detective work leads them to a lumber war between two rival companies as well as a chemical lab at a local university that is cooking up something sinister. Will the Hardy brothers be in time?

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was still schooling, I tried to read all of the Hardy Boys books. I didn't come close to finishing the whole series, and by now I had already forgot most of the content of those that I had read. But I do recall how much I loved reading each and every one of them.

[Dannuel Delizo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This time Fenton was accused of murder! Bloody ell.

[Keabetswe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe I'm not normal, but I think the British henchman absolutely ruined what had "classic" written all over it.