Summary
Frank and Joe investigate a supernatural crime in the seventeenth book in the thrilling Hardy Boys Adventures series.
One of the Hardys' favorite writers, Nathan Foxwood, has recently died in a tragic car accident. Now, the press is swarming his house in Bayport to get the scoop on the novel he completed just before his untimely death.
When Joe hears that Nathan's wife is having a giant estate sale, he drags Frank with him. Who could pass up the opportunity to see inside their favorite author's home? Nathan's wife says she wants to get away as quickly as possible; strange things have been happening since their first night there and now her husband is gone and she's sure the house is haunted. But Nathan's assistant, Adam, is not so willing to blame it all on the supernatural. Valuable things keep disappearing from the house--why would a ghost need money? Adam recognizes the Hardys' from an article he read and asks for their help.
Of course Frank and Joe Hardy don't believe in ghosts and are positive they can get to the bottom of all this. But when Adam is mysteriously hurt after spending the night alone in the house, the brothers start to wonder; what is the motive for these crimes if not ghostly revenge? Could these brother detectives be in over their heads?
Franklin W. Dixon Franklin W. Dixon is actually a pseudonym for any number of ghostwriters who have had the distinction of writing stories for the Hardy Boys series. The series was originally created by Edward Stratmeyer in 1926, the same mastermind of the Nancy Drew detective series, Tom Swift, the Rover Boys and other characters. While Stratmeyer created the outlines for the original series, it was Canadian writer Leslie McFarlane who breathed life to the stories and created the persona Franklin W. Dixon. McFarlane wrote for the series for over twenty years and is credited with success of the early collection of stories.
As the series became more popular, it was pared down, the format changed and new ghostwriters added their own flavor to the stories. Part of the draw of the Hardy Boys is that as the authors changed, so to did the times and the story lines. While there is no one true author of the series, each ghostwriter can be given credit for enhancing the life of this series and never unveiling that there really is no Franklin W. Dixon.
(Bowker Author Biography)
