Synopsis: A strange aircraft that lands near Dr. Quest’s lab isn’t an X-File—just Dr. Zin’s latest scheme. The craft contains a spidery robot that can stun people, spy on them, and (Zin hopes) steal an invention intended to harmlessly disarm people. In my opinion, that’s the kind of thing you want supervillains to have, but hey, it’s not my story.
This week we’re going to be a little more lit-crit than usual and point out that…
Tip 34: Sometimes it’s what isn’t said that is most interesting.
A spy-spider emerges from a UFO. Another one of those Quest family Wednesdays…
Here’s exhibit A. Whether deliberately or for ease of use, evil Dr. Zin has made his robot in the shape of one of the most common objects of phobia: a spider. We know at least one member of Team Quest has a little problem with those, yet no one really mentions it as this big guy scuttles around doing his dirty work. I think that’s a shame.
Speaking of things nobody discusses directly, Hadji continues to have powers beyond the ken of mortal man.
Next time: For the first time in a long time, I genuinely have no idea.
Synopsis: When a strange aircraft lands near Dr. Quest’s lab, it’s not an X-File—just Dr. Zin’s latest scheme. The craft contains a spidery robot that can stun people, spy on them, and (Zin hopes) steal an invention intended to harmlessly disarm people. In my opinion, that’s the kind of thing you want supervillains to have instead of the engines of destruction they so often do, but hey, it’s not my story.
Tip 33: With perseverance, you can achieve your goals.
A lab with your name on it is a sure sign that you have Arrived. More cynically, what do you want to bet this is supposed to be a secret installation?
This episode also gives us the unofficial motto of Jonny Quest:
“…and then we’ll probably shoot it.”
Next time: I’ve put it off as long as I can, but this week I combine two of my reluctant interests and watch Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein.
Next time on TQfM!: We see the robot spy—and it probably sees us right back.
Why Found-Again? Because this book used to be everything to me, that’s why.
“Goodnight, Joe.” “Goodnight, Frank.”
There really isn’t a lot more to cover, since the last three sections are both well-written and still relevant today. We learn a bit about the criminal justice system:
For example, we learn why citizens’ arrests aren’t totally rampant.
More about surveillance, with diagrams and glossary:
As a wee thing, I used the term “check tail” so often, even my father learned it. My poor, confused parents!
And the history and general nitty-gritty of fingerprint identification.
Give it a…oh, you know. Bad pun goes here.
And that’s all she they wrote.
The Verdict: I’m so glad I picked this up to reread: in a way, it explains an awful lot about me and the existence of this site in the first place. A little embarrassing, a lot of stuff to learn, and the occasional unfortunate hairdo: The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook isn’t just a part of childhood, it’s practically a mirror of childhood.
Might go well with: Anything tagged “Mystery” here on the Omelet.
Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable—in theory, anyway.
So you’ve foiled the bad guys in a splashy way that, in another time and place, would become an environmental disaster of impressive proportions, then buried the whole shebang under an avalanche:
Those red waves are from Dr. Quest’s sonic weapon. Remember that from the start of the episode? I almost didn’t either.
Tip 32: Even if you can’t pay the whole bill, at least throw the guy a bone.
I know Pasha Peddler is annoying, but I’m guessing helicopter fuel ain’t cheap.
Don’t be a jerk, even if your favorite multitalented scientist is.
Next time: We finish up with the Hardy Boys.
Next time on TQfM!: Next episode! “The Robot Spy.”
Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable. Also known as “The One That Made J.A. Type The Words ‘Nerve-Gas Factory’ A Thousand Times.”
You can’t always choose your own escapes from trouble, but in general:
Tip 31: Things not to do around chemical weapons.
Uh, Race, see those hazmat suits everyone has but you?In general, try not to hang around…especially, you’d think it would go without saying, over BUBBLING VATS OF NERVE GAS.Oof!
And one that maybe you should if you get the chance…
Just don’t hit the vats, okay?
Next time: In keeping with the inherent dignity of Our Cynical Omelet, a humorous musical interlude. I thought so, anyway.
Next time on TQFM!: We should be wrapping this up.
Why Found-Again? Mostly because of stuff like the 3:25 point in this:
Who hasn’t taken a bit of delight in TV or movie crimespeak?
The Premise: We’re covering two glossaries in this short peek at the end of the book: the first section is general criminal argot, and the second deals with various illegal drugs and what they might be called if you want to buy them…while under cover, presumably.
“Dictionary for a Detective” is interesting on several fronts, one of which is whether some terms are slang at all: I doubt “decoy” was ever seen as “one of those weird words the young hoodlums are using these days,” for instance. (This shows up in the drug glossary as well. Was there really a time when “locked up” wasn’t seen as physically descriptive of incarceration?)
A few of the entries are still current…
Only one of those seems really outré…and a little less so than the word “outré,” really.
But I realized as I continued reading that what this list is really handy for circa 2016 is parsing the lingo in old Bugs Bunny cartoons and old-time radiodetective shows.
Here are a few in honor of the video clip above.
And then there are the ones I don’t believe at all: if anyone reading this can cite even anecdotal evidence of someone saying “knowledge box” and meaning “school”—or indeed meaning anything normal at all—I will eat a hat of my choice.
See also “croaker joint.”
By contrast, the “High Danger” Chapter about drugs is quite informative and not as, well, goofy: it discusses the classes of drugs, street names of drugs (many of which are still used today) and terms you might hear around the buying and selling of drugs (also with much overlap with the present day). Its most dated aspects include a warning about “drug culture” that sounds lifted from you-know-what and the contents of the list itself: this was written before Ecstasy, for example, and a lot of the tranquilizers mentioned appear to have gone out of use/abuse entirely.
The Verdict: This week’s reading surprised me. I’ve spent so much time watching now-silly ’70s and ’80s crime shows that I expected the drug-slang section to be hilarious, but the terminology has been surprisingly stable between handbook-publication time and today…which I suppose could raise the question of whether “drug culture” has lost (or should lose) its scare quotes. We’ve got two more appendices to go, and then we’ll be done learning the art of detection for young people.
Next time: We go with the Quests on a field trip to a nerve-gas factory.
Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable.
Tip 29: Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
Pasha Peddler. I bet Talk Like A Pirate Day is very big on that chopper.
…if that.
Spoiler alert: The Quests get a discount. Now I’d like another origin story about how poor Hadji ever met this guy.
Next time: I manage to watch something gothic that doesn’t start with the syllable “Frank.”
Why Found-Again? Because learning to follow people quietly is the one thing in this book most kids could do with no gear or prep. With a whole farm to practice on, this was my favorite chapter when I was a junior would-be crimefighter.
The Premise: The crime for this chapter is a triple threat: an arson occurs at a jewelry company as part of a distraction for a diamond heist, and all in service of the culprit’s drug habit. I’ve watched a jewel-heist movieortwo in my time (and I may be the only one who remembers the one in the last link; the reason will become apparent in next week’s Friday post), so this was excellent.
Once again the suspect in “The Trail Beyond the Smoke Screen” is an employee of the business that’s been burgled—give the book credit for sticking close to real life here—and the process of tracking him largely falls to Frank, Joe, and Chet, who use their awesome three-man surveillance skills so adeptly they almost get murdered by drug dealers.
The drug plot ends about the way you’d expect:
I’ll just be over here trying not to mention Dragnet…dammit.
and the stones are recovered from the Fridge of Crime:
I wonder where he kept his Turkish cigarettes?
My favorite part of this story, though, was a pair of revelations—revelations to me, anyway.
The first one, and good news for the citizenry, is that Bayport PD is apparently big enough to have non-Hardy specialists.
So they probably have as many as 15 police. Whew!
The second is that, despite remembering Chet, Tony, Chief Collig, and even the unmentioned-in-this-handbook Aunt Gertrude from other Hardy Boys adventures, I did not remember that Mrs. Hardy is still alive. And this is where my reading went off the rails and into a new literary analogy:
Frank and Joe Hardy: Parents send them off to do good somewhere else with their special skills
Nancy Drew: Parent death, spends lots of time with family servant
…so Nancy Drew is Batman and the Hardys are Superman??
This is now likely to be my favorite chapter of The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook forever. Well done, pseudonymous author + FBI consultant!
The Verdict: More mixed than it sounds; this one was high on intrigue but, unless you have two friends to help, a little low on technique. That’s because the last few chapters of the handbook are storyless appendices about various aspects of crime and detection, and surveillance is covered in more depth there. This is also why we have a…
Special Note: Since the coming chapters aren’t proper stories, I’m going to try taking them two at a time, and the writeups will probably be shorter than our previous peeks into the handbook. On the upside, we’ll get to see how much drug slang has been around since the ’70s.
Next time: Are you ready to meet Pasha Peddler? If not, you’re going to really hate The Quest for Monday!
Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable.
Tip 28: Sometimes you just need to slow down…
And we all thought Race only had one gear…cleverly encoded in his name.
…and one of those times is when you are being chased by an airplane.
(Yes, this does add yet another fatality to whatever the Jonny Quest death rolls are by now. Low double digits, I think.)
Synopsis: It’s Hadji’s origin story! The awesome orphan meets the Quests for the first time and helps foil a plot to manufacture nerve gas. Also on the scene is Hadji’s friend, the greedy Pasha Peddler, who has a knack for making timely rescues profitable.
Tip 27: Safety is more important than etiquette.
Eavesdropping is wrong; eavesdropping on the people trying to kill you might, however, be necessary.
If you’re wondering why Dr. Quest is letting this happen when he knows about it for once, so am I.
Astute campers will notice that Jonny is helped by a version of the legendary Indian rope trick. Alas, the mind-blowing knowledge that this not only is real but can be done by a ten-year-old boy is of as much interest to scientist Benton Quest as that mummy from a while back.
You’d think “Rope Trick” and “Cobra Charm” would require different tunes, but they do not. The more you know™…
Special bonus screenshot: Dr. Quest forgets all kinds of Indian history.
