This book was better than the last one I read in the series, but I'm not too keen on the boys having a crush nearly every book. Joe Hardy was becoming more like Little Joe Cartwright, and though I do like both characters, I wanted them to be a little more different than that, like how they used to be. But everyone has to have the flirt, and poor Joe got the stick. I mean, sure, Joe technically was the flirty one, but he wasn't flirting with every girl that walked into his path. This is the same beef I have with the 1970's series (though in that series I guess I could overlook it, there was no Iola even though they had Chet). That wasn't the Hardy boys. They have their charm, and this series seems to have lost some of that. But despite that, I liked this book. Probably because I kept thinking of National Treasure. XD